Active Directory Domain Services
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About This Guide
The Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Active Directory Domain Services guide is intended to assist designers in the decision-making process by providing a clear and concise path for designing the Active Directory infrastructure, given the relative context. To develop and implement a successful design of Active Directory, this guide addresses numerous questions that must be answered and the many decisions and strategies that must be determined. Considerations for performance, security, manageability, scalability, and many other criteria must be taken into account if the design is to be successful. This guide, when used in conjunction with product documentation, will help companies confidently plan an Active Directory implementation. A sample job aid is included for recording the decisions made during the design process.
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Figure 1. Decision flow chart
The Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Active Directory Domain Services includes the following thirteen-step process:
Step 1: Determine the Number of Forests. This step involves determining whether one or multiple forests are required to meet the organization’s objectives.
Step 2: Determine the Number of Domains. This step involves determining the number of domains that are required to meet the organization’s objectives.
Step 3: Assign Domain Names. This step involves assigning names to each of the domains.
Step 4: Select the Forest Root Domain. This step involves selecting the forest root domain.
Step A1: Design the OU Structure. This step involves defining the OU structure for each domain in the design.
Step B1: Determine Domain Controller Placement. This step involves decidinge where domain controller resources will be placed for each domain in each forest.
Step B2: Determine the Number of Domain Controllers. This step addresses how many domain controllers to place in each location for each domain.
Step B3: Determine Global Catalog Placement. This step involves deciding which domain controllers in the forest will host global catalog services.
Step B4: Determine Operations Master Role Placement. This step involves deciding the placement of the operations master roles for the forest and each domain.
Step C1: Create the Site Design. This step involves examining each physical location and deciding whether the location should be a new site within the directory or should be associated to another site.
Step C2: Create the Site Link Design. This step involves defining links between all sites through the use of one or more site links.
Step C3: Create the Site Link Bridge Design. This step involves creating the site link bridge design.
Step D1: Determine Domain Controller Configuration. This step involves determining the disk space, memory, processor, and the network requirements for each domain controller.
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Please send questions or comments about this guide to mailto:satfdbk@microsoft.com?subject=Infrastructure%20Planning%20and%20Design%20Guides.
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