Internal DNS server Setup

I'd be tempted to use a subdomain for each department, something like accounts.domain.local, technical.domain.local etc. Don't use your own Internet domain name internally which is why I've used .local rather than .com as the top level domain in the example.

So the machines would be server1.accounts.mdomain.local, PC4.technical.domain.local etc.

But this would be for a big firm over 500 users where you intend to have 10 active directory domains; if there are only 10 people in each department then a single layer like mydomain.local and name the machines accsvr1.domain.local, tecpc1.domain.local etc. (where acc=accounts, tec=technical) is less messing about.

You could go to town like Microsoft have, e.g. inet-imc-02.redmond.corp.microsoft.com is the internal FQDN for their public mailserver maila.microsoft.com server.

Since you probably have Internet access the server will probably be used to resolve names for the clients browsing the web so setup your ISP's DNS resolvers as forwarders, you could use the root hints instead of forwarders but you might as well use your ISP's server since it'll respond faster than the root servers which often are too busy and time out.

If you want to host your public DNS records then either use a seperate server than your internal DNS server or something that can support two seperate sets of DNS records but I'm lazy and normally let the ISP do the public records.

Purchase and digest...

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/dnswinnt/

and/or...

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/dns4/


Other potential resources depending on your particulars:

http://nuweb.jinr.ru/Texts/Bind9/Bv9ARM.html

http://sysadmin.oreilly.com/news/dnsandbind_0401.html

http://www.isc.org/products/BIND/

Do you plan on having a DNS structure separate from Active Directory?
- If not - you needn't make any decisions, the DNS structure will mirror the Active Directory structure and be replicated together with domain information.
- If you want them separate - what is the reason?  If there is a valid reason, you should still mirror Active Directory as much as possible to avoid confusion.

With ten /24 subnets, you can have a maximum of 2,540 computers. With that number, a flat domain structure for both AD and DNS makes most sense.
You can subdivide the network from AD, by using Organizational Units.

If you decide to go for multiple levels of DNS structure - how many zones and name servers will you implement?
There should be a primary and at least one secondary name server for each zone.

My advice - stick to integrated Active Directory zone. It reduces the amount of admin work for you.

Cheers,
Nenadic