DNS for beginners 1

[dduuhh]

Hi All
We have 25 sites but only 6 Win2k3 DC's 2 which reside beside me in head office and 4 at our regional office branches. We have DNS running on 2 servers in head office.
to make sure DNS is available even head office had a meltdown should I put DNS services on 1/all DC's?

Would putting DNS on these other DC's and then setting one of our smaller branches to have that DC as it's primary DNS encourage that branch machine to use that DC for logon.

Is there another way of encouraging our small branches to use the DC in there local area for logon?

Wheew I hope that makes sense.

TIA
Cheers DDUUHH

 

[Koonan]

Site membership is what "encourages" a client to log into a DC. You need to make sure you create a Site for each subnet that has a DC in it. Along with the Site you need to create a Subnet, and associate that Subnet with that Site. You then move your DC into that Site. This is all done through the AD Sites and Services MMC.

I'd also configure DNS like you said.

Mike


=====================================
The good ole days weren't always good
and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems
=====================================

 

[dduuhh]

Thanks Mike.
This is probably a dumb question but....
I have DC sitting in its site Washdyke ip 192.168.1.1,
branch machine in Gore 192.168.12.21 I go to sites and services -> subnets and add Gores subnet 192.168.12.0 and choose site Washdyke as site object for this subnet?

 

[Koonan]

How many DCs do you have and where are they. I'll assume for now that you two DCs, one in Washdyke and one in Gores. I'll also assume Washdyke is your "primary" site.

In AD Sites and Services, if you haven't changed or added anything, you should see a Site called Default-First-Site. All of your servers should be in the Servers folder under this site.

You will need to create a new Site called something like Gores-Site. Then create Subnets for 192.168.1.0 and 192.168.12.0. Associate 192.168.1.0 with the Default-First-Site and 192.168.12.0 with Gores-Site. Then move the DC for Gores into the Gores Site.

If you have other subnets on your networks, where clients sit, you need to create subnets for those too and associate them with the Site/DCs you want them to contact first.

Mike


=====================================
The good ole days weren't always good
and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems
=====================================

 

[ntinlin]

You should have DNS installed on each DC. The replication of the DNS data can be integrated into the AD replication.

You should also have at least one Global Catalog server per site that has an Exchange server

 

[dduuhh]

Hi Guys
We have 25 sites (branches), including here at head office where we have 2 win2k3 DC's one running exchnage2003.
We have 4 other sites that are regional offices where there is a win2k3 DC at each, Washdyke is one of these.
Then we have 20 small brances which have only win2k professional PC's, Gore is one of these.

So I create a subnet for Gore and choose site Washdyke as site object for this subnet.

Thanks Guy's much appreciated.

Cheers DDUUHH