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Shawn Gradwell
Asked: 2014-09-23 03:23:36 +0800 CST

Multi-Site AD design

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I have a new client with 3 sites and I want to join/combine/trust ADs. The setup is as follows:

Site 1: No AD.

Site 2: Hosted VMs on a dedicated local domain (for the 3 servers in the VLAN only).

Site 3: Different local domain (than site 2).

The requirement is to join all sites logically and manage AD centrally with regards to GPOs etc.

What are my options and what is best practice?

I understand all the requirements in terms of firewalling or client OS requirements etc.

active-directory

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Assuming that by "dedicated local domain" and "different local domain" you mean that the domains are not part of the same forest, your options are:

    • Create a new forest. Move resources from their current domain (or lack of domain) to a domain in this forest.
    • Anoint one of the existing domains (I'd pick one in a site that has the best connectivity to the other two sites) to be the One True Domain. Migrate resources in the other domain to this one. Add resources from site without AD.

    "Best Practice" probably comes down to assessing the precise needs of the business and the complexity of migrating from both existing domains to each other or to a new domain.

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