In the past, when creating AD domains, I've used the common convention of using a sub-domain of the company's publicly registered domain name, e.g "corp.mycompany.com" or "int.mycompany.com". I've always accepted the default NetBIOS name when running DCPromo, for fear that creating a NetBIOS name that differs from the sub-domain may cause complications.
I've recently been doing a bit of research on the consequences of providing an alternate NetBIOS name. The main reasons behind this are:
- The NetBIOS name isn't particularly descriptive or unique to the company
- Apparently generic NetBIOS names such as "CORP" or "INT" can cause issues when merging IT systems (although I've not had experience with this myself)
- Providing something "before the slash" that means more to users (less important)
In looking at the possible downsides, the only one I can come up with is the disjointed namespace issue when configuring Exchange.
Can anybody with more experience than I elaborate on my findings at all?
Many thanks
We have had that in place for 8+ years, with 13 domains and no adverse effects.
Where they are different, our Pre-Windows 2000 domain names are CNAMES (aliases) for the substitute names.