New site setup - Windows 2003 AD domain

[Guest Davidi]

Our firm is planning to open a branch office soon and we are interested in

creating a new site within our current domain. We have very simple setup-

one Windows 2003 domain within the default site. The plan is to set up a new

site, site link, etc. in AD Sites and Services, install a domain controller

in our current site, and then ship it down to the branch office and add it to

the new subnet. All of our resources (Exchange, printers, file servers,

etc) will still reside in our main headquarters and we're planning use

Riverbed for WAN optimization. Our domain controller in the remote site

which will be used to authenticate users, for DNS, and for DHCP.

 

It sounds fairly straightforward but I'm considering calling Microsoft

Advisory Services for setup help.

 

Does anyone have any experience setting up sites in Active Directory similar

to the scenario above and if so would you recommend any additional resources

or mention any gotchas that we might run into?

[Guest Meinolf Weber]

Re: New site setup - Windows 2003 AD domain

 

Hello Davidi,

 

Your plan is ok and should work without problems. After setup and replication

(give time for it) run "dcdiag /v", "netdiag /v", "repadmin /showrepl" and

"dnslint /ad /s localhost" to check for errors. The first 3 are included

in the installation disk, under support\tools run the support.msi to install.

DNSLint you can get here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321046

 

Just make sure that your time of disconnection from the domain is as short

as possible. Dependend on the SP version and installation way of your machine

the tombston lifetime is either 60 or 180 days. The TL shouldn't be exceeded.

That will often result in reinstall.

 

Best regards

 

Meinolf Weber

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> Our firm is planning to open a branch office soon and we are

> interested in creating a new site within our current domain. We have

> very simple setup- one Windows 2003 domain within the default site.

> The plan is to set up a new site, site link, etc. in AD Sites and

> Services, install a domain controller in our current site, and then

> ship it down to the branch office and add it to the new subnet. All

> of our resources (Exchange, printers, file servers, etc) will still

> reside in our main headquarters and we're planning use Riverbed for

> WAN optimization. Our domain controller in the remote site which

> will be used to authenticate users, for DNS, and for DHCP.

>

> It sounds fairly straightforward but I'm considering calling Microsoft

> Advisory Services for setup help.

>

> Does anyone have any experience setting up sites in Active Directory

> similar to the scenario above and if so would you recommend any

> additional resources or mention any gotchas that we might run into?

>