Best practice for grouping FSMO roles together

[markhoward]

Hi there,

I've just started at a new company and have been tasked with documenting the Active Directory network and making recommendations where necessary.

It's a small network with about 80 users and 20 servers, and only one domain - but this WILL grow considerable in teh next year or so (possibly double in size).

I vaguely remember from my MCSE (done some time ago now) that there are certain FSMOroles that it can be benificial to group together (I think the domain naming master and infrastructure master is one) but can't remeber.

Can anyone remind me?

Ta

Mark

 

[mlichstein]

There are couple 'rules' about FSMO roles you can follow.

First, since the schema and domain naming roles are critical to the entire forest you should keep them together. Basically, you shouldnt mess with them at all, just leave them on the first DC of the forest root domain.

Next, you cannot have the server that holds the infrastructure master role also be a global catalog. The exception to this rule is if you have a single domain and you make every DC a global catalog.

If you have multiple domains, make sure that the infrastructure master can get to a GC. So dont put both on the same box, but make sure they are on the same subnet.

And that's about it.