Merge two Independent AD domains/forests & Exchange
I have two independent domains/forests, call them A.ORG.COM & B.ORG.COM; there is no common 'root' forest/domain. Each forest/domain has been operating independently for years, now management wants to merge B.ORG.COM with A.ORG.COM and keep A.ORG.COM as the domain name.
B.ORG.COM has over 25 AD servers and Exchange servers due to it being spread over a WAN with slow links. Each site has it's own mailboxes; some sites are as small as 10 and others are around 300 users. This was done so that the Users would see their email ‘leave’ as soon as they hit Send as well as to help with logon.
I have searched for days for good articles concerning what I am trying to accomplish but cannot seem to find one that fits my scenario. The articles I have read thus far are about establishing trusts to share resources or migrating both forests/domains to a new name. I would love to just establish the two way trusts, but management is insistent that they no longer want B.ORG.COM to exist.
Thanks in advance.
B.ORG.COM has over 25 AD servers and Exchange servers due to it being spread over a WAN with slow links. Each site has it's own mailboxes; some sites are as small as 10 and others are around 300 users. This was done so that the Users would see their email ‘leave’ as soon as they hit Send as well as to help with logon.
I have searched for days for good articles concerning what I am trying to accomplish but cannot seem to find one that fits my scenario. The articles I have read thus far are about establishing trusts to share resources or migrating both forests/domains to a new name. I would love to just establish the two way trusts, but management is insistent that they no longer want B.ORG.COM to exist.
Thanks in advance.
Marc Dekeyser
Well if you use ADMT (active directory migration tool) you can move the users from B to A. Trusts will be needed for this. Depending on your exchange version you could do an interOrg migration to move the exchange data. Plan this carefully as it could prove to be a headache!
first, you need to create a trust between forests. You should go for uni-directional trust rather than birectional as Forest B.org.com will not be required after migration.
Then you can plan for Exchange routing. Are there two exchange organizations involved ?
Then you can plan for Exchange routing. Are there two exchange organizations involved ?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER
Thanks to all three of you thus far, keep it coming. I am hoping that they will let me either put a bidirectional trust in and be done with it, or maybe a root domain (ORG.COM) and have both A & B become a child of it. But, also, if they stay this course I want to be able to give them all the information so that if things turn ugly....
Putting in a root domain has both benefits and pitfalls.
One benefit is gaining extremely tight control of your top-level accounts like Enterprise admins.
You would also gain your 2-way transitive trust and be able to start your migration.
One consideration is that you can never get rid of the root domain. Once it's in, it's in for ever.
Some resources:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mergers_acquisitions_active_directory_prune_and_graft_restructuring_support_limitations%28WS.10%29.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc974332%28WS.10%29.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996077%28EXCHG.65%29.aspx
One benefit is gaining extremely tight control of your top-level accounts like Enterprise admins.
You would also gain your 2-way transitive trust and be able to start your migration.
One consideration is that you can never get rid of the root domain. Once it's in, it's in for ever.
Some resources:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mergers_acquisitions_active_directory_prune_and_graft_restructuring_support_limitations%28WS.10%29.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc974332%28WS.10%29.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996077%28EXCHG.65%29.aspx