Replicating Active Directory on a Win2K3 Box

Wouldn't it be enough to introduce another domain controller, as they have the built-in capability to replicate between themselves. This is not something that you would want to do with Replistor.

Hi Yes, I didn't expect an answer quite so soon and I've been busy doing some other things.

Yes, I think your right. That is the avenue we will pursue.

Cheers,

Phil

Upon further research it doesn't appear that AD(s) are capable of being "replicated" without them being members of a cluster. For me, clusters have way too much baggage for that option.

One suggestion given by EMC was to run a blank AD on the backup server, copy the source's SYSVOL to a temp directory on the Target, and when recovery is needed put the source systems SYSVOL into place on the backup and use the ADSutils program to edit its structure to alter machine name values. This doesn't seem easy and surely isn't automatic.

Does anyone know of an automated way to provide redundancy for AD(s) without resorting to Clusters?


Thanks,

Phil

Not sure where you got that information from, but AD server *cannot* be clustered as there is no need to do so - they replicate between themselves and can switch roles as necessary.
You will find this clearly stated in the microsoft support resources.

Active Directory replicates itself to other domain controllers; its part of Microsoft's design of AD. Take a look at this page for a little more info:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/prodtech/windows2000/w2kccadm/adsites/w2kadm38.mspx

I'm not too sure what the bit about clusters was all about. My guess is that the EMC technician is trying to find a workaround to be able be able to use Replistor to replicate AD.