Server Forest Setup

flyingdisc · 17th June 2008

Greetings All!

The question I am about to ask is quite involved, thank you to anyone willing to help.

[our hardware - 2 HP proliant G5's]
I have the task of creating a new Domain Forest for our business as we have purchased a major production system that will be installed on 1 server, this production system will integrate w/ an MS.SQL database that will be located on the same server(seperate raid 5 partition from OS still on server1). The second server will be used as the web server, this will be its only role pretty much, it will need to access server1 SQL database and relay info to server2 for our web ordering module.
Server Functions
server1.DC
> ADDS - Domain Controller
> Application Server for FeneVision (FeneVision populating SQL database, communicate w/ server2 IIS)
> SQL Database MS.SQL 1 proc lisence. Seperate RAID 5 partition
> File server for domain users and to communicate with server2

server2.Web - IIS 7
> PHP ready
> mySQL or create new database in msSQL for Wordpress blog CMS
> File services to access server1

Questions.2 accomplish
- ADDS Forest creation for 2 servers - what is the best way to initially setup & what roles for each server. Should I create 1 domain and join the other server to it or create another subdomain for server2 in the forest?

- Domains : When I setup the local domain controller should I use a name that reflects our web domain aka. www.ourcompany.ca

**ReggieB** · 18th June 2008

You should only need one AD domain. You could set up server2 as a backup domain server, but that will impact its performance a little.

If these are the only two servers and resilience is more important than out-right performance, I'd set up server2 as a backup domain controller.

If server2 is a production server and performance is an issue, I'd add it as a member of the domain with no management role (I'd also be tempted to buy a very cheap server and use that as a second domain server to provide some resilience if server1 dies)

I'd strongly recommend that you do not use an internet domain name internally. Use a .local domain name for your internal network. For example, 'company.local'. Have a look at this Microsoft article on the subject.

flyingdisc · 18th June 2008

Thank you very much for your help. I had setup our DC originally to have a .local domain name internally so that is OK. I didn't simplify my situation by installing ADDS on server2, I agree this feature is not necessary I will likely start over now as the major configuring has not been done on either server.

I do want to buy a couple more cheap servers, 1 to run a transparent proxy (untangle or similar) and another to be a backup domain server as you suggest.

thanks again.