Replacing Windows2003 DNS Server

[zoeythecat]

Hi All,

We have 3 domain controllers in a single Windows2003 domain. Our main domain controller(DNS,DHCP,WINS,GC) has been crashing because of a disk controller error. We plan on replacing this domain controller this coming Monday. The other 2 Domain Controllers are low end processors and not robust enough to handle active directory traffic if we transferred all the roles, etc. I have a few questions I was hoping someone could offer some insight on:

(1)It appears that when this server goes down, no one can connect, because all the FSMO roles, dns and dhcp and all the clients and servers are pointed to this server. What can I do to provide a failover, so when this server goes down, users would still be able to connect?
(2) What should be my best strategy replacing this server? I assume I promote a server to be a domain controller, transfer all the FSMO roles, make this a GC, transfer the DHCP database.

Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

 

[zoeythecat]

Bdintegrations,

I could do that, but again what happens if the server that is serving DHCP requests goes down? Even if the requests is going through the router, you still have to configure bootp on the same dhcp server, so if the dhcp server goes down, how is this a failover option? I would guess DHCP clients would not be able to connect from all subnets. Correct me if i'm wrong?

 

[58sniper]

That what the 80/20 split handles - in case one goes down. Why do you need bootp? Having two DHCP servers in a 80/20 scenarios handles your needs. I don't see why clients couldn't connect from all subnets.

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/

 

[bdintegrations]

-Like sniper said, the 80/20 split handles the high-availability. Both DHCP servers are allowed to hand out ipaddress for each subnet.

-The router modification is to allow all subnets use the 2 DHCP servers instead of having 40 DHCP servers(2 for each subnet).

-Like sniper said you shouldn't need bootp. Why did you bring up "bootp"? Is that from your research on the router DHCP forwarding? If so than don't worry about the fact that Cisco calls it "Bootp". It is still DHCP in your context and you should not have to configure Bootp on the DHCP servers.


Business and Data Integrations

http://www.bdintegrations.com/

A Northern Virginia IT Service and Consulting Company

 

[zoeythecat]

Ok, thanks for all the suggestions. I'll look into doing the 80/20 split.