One Domain or Multiple Domains?

[zalaska]

Hello all. For the ease of managability, I would like to create one domain with multiple sites. Here is our network setup. Currently, we have three NT4 domains connected via T-1's. 23 channels of these T-1's are dedicated for voice traffic, this only leaves me with one 64k channel for data. At each site we have about 25 workstations with 75 users (75 computers and 225 users for the entire network). When I transfer files to these sites, it appears that I am only getting about 25k throughput. In the near future we will be upgrading to a Server 2003 OS. Would one domain configured with three sites work for this setup, or would you suggest creating each site as its own domain? My only concern is with Active Directory replication etc. and the minimal amount of bandwidth for data. Thanks...

 

[58sniper]

In the near future we will be upgrading to a Server 2003 OS.

Any reason why you're going to upgrade to an OS that's two versions back?

Would one domain configured with three sites work for this setup, or would you suggest creating each site as its own domain?

Single domain. Otherwise, you'd have way too much administration maintaining separate domains. And, unless you created a trust between them, users in one domain wouldn't be able to access resources in another domain.

However, you could easily and cheaply put a $40 a month cable Internet connection in each of those branch offices, create a VPN, and have a 10Mbs+ connection to each site.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[zalaska]

Thanks for your input. This is a network (government) where we are not allowed to install a cable modem from an external network. So I should not have replication issues etc. with my slow WAN links? I plan to create sites to help control when replication occurs.