Advice needed on best way to attach remote site member server

[andyds]

Server = MS Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition

I have a server running as a domain controller on our main site. Let’s call it (Site A). It acts as a File/Print/DHCP/DNS server too. I have established a VPN connection to our remote site (Site B) and communication between the sites are fine. The clients can attach to the DC and work but the link is not good and the delays for logins and file access and saving are ridiculously slow. We are not going to upgrade the link so I want users on site B to attach to a local server that is a member server of the main DC on site A. I want the local server on site B to serve the clients on that site for login and file services and then to replicate the changes at night (when the link is not being used) back to the main DC on site A for backup purposes. This should mean using the domain on remote sites is a lot faster.

My question is how best to achieve this?

 

[wdoellefeld]

Unless you make the remote site server a DC it will not be possible.

Until Server 2008 that is, then you can configure the remote office server as a read-only DC.

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[andyds]

What is the best way to go about doing that and then replicating it.

 

[wdoellefeld]

The easiest way for most folks is to use DFS to replicate the data. You stated that this is a slow link so that may not be a good fit for you. It's worth a test though.

I've seen people script out nightly copy jobs, usually with robocopy. They would copy the data and then back it up locally.

If the link is really bad and there is large amount of data, you may want to make the solution more local (some sort of weekend backup to the home office with shadow copies enabled locally?).

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