Windows 2000 Domain Consolidation

[Zane]

I know from best practices that this design COMPLETELY sucks and makes no
sense and is admin nightmare.

We have the following:
-----------------------

- 1 Forest
- 6 Domains (DOM.COM, A.DOM.COM, B.DOM.COM etc.)
- 800 Users
- 6 different locations (each own domain)
- Exchange 5.5 at each site connected to main site or Exchange Server via
X.400 connector

Question:
---------

We are upgrading to Windows 2003 and Exchange 2003 and will be consolidating
all Child Domains into the Forest Root domain as OU of ONE domain!
What I am looking for is the order of migration and some insights to what
you would do order wise.
We are thinking of standing up Exchange 2003 Server at root domain and
moving all mailboxes at each domain into the main domains new Exchange 2003
Domain (root), then doing the migration to AD 2003.

What are your thoughts and examples?

Thank you all!

 

[Ulf B. Simon-Weidner [MVP]]

We are upgrading to Windows 2003 and Exchange 2003 and will be
consolidating
all Child Domains into the Forest Root domain as OU of ONE domain!
What I am looking for is the order of migration and some insights to
what
you would do order wise.
We are thinking of standing up Exchange 2003 Server at root domain and
moving all mailboxes at each domain into the main domains new Exchange
2003
Domain (root), then doing the migration to AD 2003.

Hello Zane,

that's how I would do it - take care of Exchange first (step by step),
then consolidate users and domain members with ADMTv2.

Here are some links:

Active Directory Migration Tool Overview
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/planning/activedirectory/admt.asp

Domain Migration Cookbook (see Ch. 9 & 10 for ADMT)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr.../windows2000serv/deploy/cookbook/cookchp1.asp

326480 How to Use Active Directory Migration Tool Version 2 to Migrate
from
Windows 2000 to Windows Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=326480

ADMT Download
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=788975b1-5849-
47079817-8c9773c25c6c&DisplayLang=en