Setting up a lab on our production domain?

[Ceez]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to setup a lab of 3 computers on our domain.

One of these PC's will be running server08Ent as a dhcp and dns server.

I will need internet access on this lab.

The only access to the internet from our office is to plug into the network jack on the wall and get an IP from from our production DC (03 enterprise) which is a dhcp/dns server. we currently have an mpls network which goes into our cisco router -> hp procurve switch -> server and data drops.

If I setup this lab server on our production network it will cause problems being that it would be a 2nd dhcp/dns server. I've thought about assinging it a different IP range but our gateway (cisco router) is on the production range and would not work (at least to my knowledge it wouldnt unless there's a router config available)

Another idea is reserving a few ip addresses from our production dhcp/dns server and creating a child domain within our root domain and simply call it "LAB", lab.ourdomain.net.

This way the 3 pc's can chat with themselves and do what they need to do without getting in the range (and in the way) of the production server and ip pool.

any thoughts?

thanks for the help,

ceez

 

[58sniper]

If the "lab" server is going to be part of the same domain as the production network, you need to keep them separated. Otherwise you run the risk of contaminating production AD during lab testing.

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/