DHCP Failover / redundancy.

[lacayo]

I have a pair of Dell 2950's that I want to use as my DHCP servers. I have a very large network, with a total of over 1200 subnets. Each network has 16 Class C networks (most only use 2 or 3 a few use up to 5) In the past the networks were split right down the middle with one server using the low end and the other the high end of their 16 class C networks to avoid IP conflicts.

What I am trying to do now is to have failover between the two servers. I want to have 2 sections, I want half of the schools to have 1 primary (server 1) and 1 secondary (server 2)and the other have to have 1 primary (server 2) and 1 secondary (server1 ).

My question is can a dhcp server be both a primary and a secondary? Is there a special configuration that is needed?

Thank you,

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

My question is can a dhcp server be both a primary and a secondary? Is there a special configuration that is needed?

My understanding is that DHCP is first come first served (in a sense, there is more to it than that).

You can cluster a DCHP server for "Fail-Over"

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Windo...e846-413a-bd9a-99645ac580991033.mspx?mfr=true

But in my humble opinion, that is a lot of expenses coming from ultra paranoia.

As long as your DHCP backups are good, lease times are not aggressive (meaning standard 8 day lease). You should be able to recover a DHCP server before your second DHCP server runs out of addresses.

Split scope low and high like you had before is a good solution. I would stick with that...

Jesse Hamrick

http://www.powershellpro.com

 

[GlenJohnson]

You didn't mention the os's. Primary's and Secondaries went out with NT. Windows 2000 and later have servers that are equal.

Glen A. Johnson
Johnson Computer Consulting

Support our Troops!

http://www.fred08.com/index.aspx