I am looking for some sizing guidelines for W2003 AD. Specifically, what is
a realistic # of objects to expect to have in 1 domain? 2nd, what is a
approximate # of users to domain controllers ratio for a 4 proc-2.8ghz, 4gb
RAM server (think HP DL580G2)? Exchange 2003 is also part of this project.
Assume all users would be at 1 location, with GB nics, and sitting next to
the Exchagne servers, which I will have 10 active MSX 2k3 servers running on
2 5+2 Clusters. I will be using an enterprise CA, and AD integrated DNS,
along with MIIS to synch with some other directories.
What I am thinking is that I can get away with 6 DCs, but am I going to kill
the boxes. Some numbers I have seen are to scale 1 DC for every 5000 users,
but that seems low to me.
thanks,
Jason
Jason Heltne wrote:
Hi,
I recently read an article or TechNet webcast where it was claimed that the
largest W2k3 Active Directory network known had 7 Billion objects. I
remember counting the zeros several times. I cannot find this article now,
so I don't know if that was objects in the forest or a domain.
More important is replication across slow links. A good article on W2k
design is:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tre...n/bpaddsgn.asp
A lot of good info here, but specifically it is recommended that if your
slowest link is 56 Kbps, the domain should have no more than 100,000 users.
Note that this applies to W2k. Replication has been improved in W2k3, so I
would expect this number to be much larger, but I have not yet found an
updated design guide.
The article also has info on DC capacity. For example, a Quad PIII Xeon with
4GB can support at least 10,000 users. Actually, the number of DC's may be
more dependent on the number of sites. Best is for each site to have at
least 2, just for redundancy. If you are in one location, you'll have one
site. You will need at least 2 DC's to support up to 20,000 users. And,
that's W2k server info. I don't see the harm in having 6 DC's. I'm not sure
how Exchange impacts this.
Also, the ADSize tool might help:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000...er/default.asp
If you size based on guidelines for W2k, you will be conservative.
--
Richard
Microsoft MVP Scripting and ADSI
HilltopLab web site - http://www.rlmueller.net
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