Tech Support > Operating Systems > Windows 2003 > Single or Multiple Domains
Single or Multiple Domains
Posted by Philip Mattson on January 21st, 2004


Our company is getting ready to upgrade our current NT4 domain
infrastructure to Windows 2003 AD.

Currently we have one domain in the office (40 people), and one domain at
our ISP (25 servers, 200 accounts with low authentication usage) where we
serve web applications for our clients.
The office and our ISP are connected by a T1 link.

My question is: Should we replace the two domain with a single domain, or
stick with two domains and establish trusts between AD domains like we
currently do with our NT4 domains?? I'm open to all suggestions/comments and
would love to hear advantages/disadvantages of each approach.

Thanks in advance!!

Phil Mattson


Posted by Nick Pierson [MSFT] on January 21st, 2004


Hi Phil,

I recommend reading the Designing the AD Logical Structure chapter in the
Windows Server 2003 Deployment Guide
(http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...3/proddocs/dep
loyguide/dssbc_logi_overview.asp) to help you in making your decision.

Contingent on the Autonomy and Isolation needs (see
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...asp?frame=true
for more info) of your new AD forest, and considering that you have a decent
link speed between sites to offset any significant replication traffic, I
would suggest using a single domain environment. For more information on the
pros and cons of choosing a single domain model, see
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...asp?frame=true.

Best Regards,

Nick Pierson
Active Directory Technical Writer
Windows Server Division
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Philip Mattson" <philm@nwsoft.com> wrote in message
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