Second Domain, Child Domain, or Not?

[Romuald Thorn]

The company I work for currently has baout 250 workstations. In 5 offices, 4
of them remote. Each of the remote offices either connect back to the main
office using VPN or Frame Relay. Each romote offce has a DC in the parent
domain.

Now we just bought a company that also has a w2k domain of thier own. They
have about 16 users, and one DC. I am not sure if it would be best to
configure them just like all of the other remote sites, changing thier DC to
a DC in our primary domain. Or if it would be better to make them a child
domain or even just have a second domain in the forest. This office will be
connecting to use via VPN.

What arguments are there for or against these ideas? What should I truly
consider before making the final decision?
Any suggestion and comments or thoughts about this are welcome.

This is all happening here in the near future so I need to make a decision
soon.

 

[Romuald Thorn]

Sorry for the Second Post. I posted the same basic question earlier while at
work and did not see it this eavening when I got home.

Thanks in advance for replies to either post.