asked on

Are multiple sites needed for a single Active DIrectory domain and single forest?

Hello Experts,
I'm wondering if there are any advantages or disadvantages for creating multiple sites for an AD enviornment with one single forest and one single domain. Our domain is expected to grow to about 10,000 users, and our network enviornment consists of a city-wide campus between several different buildings, all of which are on the same network but different subnets.

We have setup multiple domain controllers within the various subnets to balance load, but would you recommend creating multiple sites and multiple global catalog servers as well? What's the best architecture for a seemingly flat, but large AD enviornment?

Thanks

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

QBRad

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

SOLUTION

Toni Uranjek

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

esckeyrwm

ASKER

QBRad & Toni,

Thank you both for your advice. Seems like setting up multiple sites is the way to go for a large geographic location. Part of the reason why we've kept it a single-site enviornment is because we weren't sure what kind of impact a multi-site enviornment would have on replication. We offer a lot of "on-demand" services (from user account creation, to GPO updates, to password resets) and we can't afford replication to take longer then a matter of minutes. By creating a mulit-site enviornment, am I running the risk of a 15-minute minimum on replication? I understand there is a bandwidth cost of replicating at a more frequent interval.

Thanks again.

Toni Uranjek

When you set replication frequency to once in 15 minutes, this is maximum interval. AD will be replicated at least once in 15 minutes.