asked on

Active Directory Communications Bandwidth Usage?

Hi all,

I am working at a company with 12 sites, all of them with a small but roughly equal number of users, and I'm considering implementing AD. However, before I do so, I wanted to find out what the bandwidth overhead will be across our VPN tunnels to see if this will be practical. Some key facts:

1. Only one location will have a DC and global catalog server.
2. All other locations have too few users (about 10-15) to justify adding a new DC/GC at each location.
3. All satellite locations have VPN tunnels connected to the main office at roughly 768Kbps upstream and 3Mbit downstream.

I'm interested in knowing what will happen to the main office bandwidth should 11 other locations send traffic across the tunnels for things like logins, login scripts (no drive mappings), global catalog lookups (for exchange), AD related DNS traffic, etc.

Thanks,
Dave

SysExpert

There should not be an issue if set up correctly, assuming that you are not using a lot of bandwidth in any case.

I would say that 128 kbps for this is enough since it is designed for low bandwidth operation.

You could always build a small test lab and measure if needed.

I hope this helps !

dsstao

ASKER

128 kbps X 12 users per location = 1536 kbps - that will soak the entire T1 line just for one location (and we have 11 satellite locations). Doesn't sound like that will work to me.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

SysExpert

membership

This solution is only available to members.

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

Start Free Trial

dsstao

ASKER

I agree. Thanks for the help.