Adding 3rd DC

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JVH

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Brief History:
I've inherited 1 DC (2003) that freezes every few days requiring a
restart and another DC (also 2003)that does absolutely nothing when the
first one goes down. (DC2 had might as well be a member server.) Our
Exchange server (2000) looks to DC1 and DC2 to authenticate users in
our site and distant sites. So 500+ users can't access their email when
DC1 freezes and DC2 does nothing.

I brought another DC (DC3) online today and see no replication errors -
using replmon. DC1 is FSMO, DNS, and DHCP server.

DHCP
If DC1 goes down - or if I remove and rebuild it - it will not be
available to hand out IP's. My instincts tell me to create a DHCP scope
on DC3 and assign a different block of addresses to the scope. Is this
correct? Recommendations?

FSMO
I'd like to make DC3 FSMO in the event DC1 goes to the grave or has to
be completely reloaded. Any steps I should take before delegating DC3
as FSMO?

Hardware Problems and Event Logs
Device drivers are all current per Dell. I've ran diagnostics on DC1
(Dell PowerEdge) with multiple passes enabled but it reports no
problems. Is it likely that there is a hardware error that diagnostics
are not reporting? And if so, would such problems not appear in the
event logs?

I hope I haven't asked too much. (This is my 1st post here.)

Thanks,

John


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Re: Adding 3rd DC

Hello JVH,

see inline

Best regards

Meinolf Weber
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers
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> Brief History:
> I've inherited 1 DC (2003) that freezes every few days requiring a
> restart and another DC (also 2003)that does absolutely nothing when
> the
> first one goes down.

Mostly because it isn't DNS/DHCP/GC server. No roles, no work.

> (DC2 had might as well be a member server.) Our
> Exchange server (2000) looks to DC1 and DC2

How do you mean this, it looks to DC1 and DC2? BTW, is the exchange also DC?

> to authenticate users in
> our site and distant sites. So 500+ users can't access their email
> when
> DC1 freezes and DC2 does nothing.
> I brought another DC (DC3) online today and see no replication errors
> - using replmon. DC1 is FSMO, DNS, and DHCP server.

You should also make a second DC a DNS server to have redundancy if one goes
down. No DNS server, no user logon, because they are not aible to resolve
the DC's. Use Active directory integrated zones, then you have it replicated
via AD and full accessible.

> DHCP
> If DC1 goes down - or if I remove and rebuild it - it will not be
> available to hand out IP's. My instincts tell me to create a DHCP
> scope
> on DC3 and assign a different block of addresses to the scope. Is this
> correct? Recommendations?

For DHCP create 2 DHCP servers which provide the same scope and split the
scope with first half excluded on one server and second half excluded on
the other server. So you have a full scope running and if one goes down,
at least the half is available. Then you can easliy remove the exclusion
range and have the full again until the other server is back. Before it is
back, you have again to exclude the half.

> FSMO
> I'd like to make DC3 FSMO in the event DC1 goes to the grave or has to
> be completely reloaded. Any steps I should take before delegating DC3
> as FSMO?

Make sure with dcdiag /v, netdiag /v and repadmin /showreps that you have
no errors on all DC's. In a single forest single domain environment it is
also best practise to make all DC's Global catalog server.

> Hardware Problems and Event Logs
> Device drivers are all current per Dell. I've ran diagnostics on DC1
> (Dell PowerEdge) with multiple passes enabled but it reports no
> problems. Is it likely that there is a hardware error that diagnostics
> are not reporting? And if so, would such problems not appear in the
> event logs?

If your eventlogs are error free and if you don't realize unexpected reboots,
really slow performance that comes up unexpected or something else that seems
not software related, it should be fine.

> I hope I haven't asked too much. (This is my 1st post here.)

No.

> Thanks,
>
> John
>
> http://forums.techarena.in
>
 
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