Design Recommendations

[rtiv]

Hello,

We are in the planning stages of our W2K migration. We have 3 main data centers located in New England, the midwest and out west. All three are connected via 20mb ATM links. We have decided on the "restructure" migration approach. We're going to create a new forest root domain and move objects to the new domain. We can't decide if we should design the forest by keeping it with one single domain or by creating child domains for each data center location? We would like a centralized administrative approach. I would appreciate it if anyone could respond with their respecitve recommendations. I would also like to chat with those of you who may have had a similar design like the one I have.

If I choose the single domain approach, how many servers should I purchase? Where should they be placed?

Thanks

 

[l1a1uk]

The question you are asking covers a big area. Active Directory design is crucial and it is amazing how many organisations get it wrong.

I recomend that you get hold of the Branchall white papers from Microsoft and read them fully. These papers are execellent but rather large, but will answer 99% of your questions. I have lost count of the times I have used these papers and still do.

It is difficult to give a full answer to what you ask as you know your aims and infrastructure better than anyone.

I would also recomend you read Chapter 6 from the 2000 Resource Kit and make sure that you are ofay with DNS. 2000 is a complex animal and the work that you put in during its initial implementation will stop many unecessary problems from occuring.

Once setup problems in 2000 can be more difficult to solve, so the best policy is to aviod them in the first place. Planning and testing are the key.