Over-whelmed

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ray
  • Start date Start date
R

Ray

I'm a system administrator in an organization which has gone through
major staff upheavals during the past year. We are now dealing with a
multitude of problems; some minor and some quite significant. Since
no documentation or written procedures exist for how our domain was
designed, we have been forced into fire-fighting mode and we are
clearly losing the battle. Each day we come to work and wonder if the
entire enterprise will grind to a halt.

What can we do to get a big picture of root causes? Rather than
swatting flies all day long, how can we identify and repair the
fundamental system issues?

We are a mixed mode environment. PDC is W2K running Active Directory.
Backup controllers are both W2K and NT40. DHCP and WINS are running.
Exchange 5.5. We have about 100 servers and about 1200 workstations.
The typical symptoms we face each day are (1) Domain Controller not
found, (2) Logon server not found, (3) Users unable to access shares
or applications, (4) Servers replicating conflicting information about
the domain - for example, some servers still think a controller is on
the system but other servers think it is completely gone.

I know this is very sketchy information. Please let me know what else
I can post.

Thanks for you help.

Ray
 
We are a mixed mode environment. PDC is W2K running Active Directory.
Backup controllers are both W2K and NT40. DHCP and WINS are running.
Exchange 5.5. We have about 100 servers and about 1200 workstations.
Click to expand...

Workstations: Which OS?
How many NT 4.0 BDC do you have?
The typical symptoms we face each day are (1) Domain Controller not
found,
Click to expand...

W2k clients are quering DNS to locate the site's GC server. Is there
anybody familiar with sniffer software?

Ciao, Walter
 
If I was in charge of your IT department then I would hire
some consultants with a proven track record in maintaining
a Microsoft server environment, and get them to evaluate
the situation and issue their recommendations.
 
Walter Schulz said:
Workstations: Which OS?
Click to expand...

Workstations are NT40 (85%), W2K (13%) and XP (2%). The reason we
have not moved more aggressively to W2K workstations is roaming
profiles are not loading/updating consistently.
How many NT 4.0 BDC do you have?
Click to expand...

There are three NT40 BDCs and three W2K BDCs.
 
From what you say, it is possible the majority of your problems lie in the
fact the servers are not communicationg correctly between each other. Fix
this and lots more will fall into place I would imagine

Are you documenting what you find so as not to make the same mistake?

Maybe look through the helpdesk log (assuming there is one) finding where
the major problem areas lie as far as user experience goes and this may lead
you to a common problem area. Knock these off one by one.

Inform your users via the intranet or email of what is going on so at least
some of them will understand and yours and their stress level will drop.

I don't think you can wave a magic wand and have it all fixed quickly. You
have to get the user experience under control first, even if this means
performing some host file magic to point the clients to the right servers
then fix the design problem in the background at a later date.

Sounds like a good thing to get your teeth into...... want some help??

-Matt
 
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