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Redundancy for the Windows SBS DC Role

If an SBS box (hence the PDC for the network) goes down, and it's the only server on the network, how can/do users continue to authenticate?

Background: A client's network has a single server that runs Windows SBS 2003 . The SBS is used only as a domain controller and for file sharing -- no other SBS features are used. There is also NAS .

I am not worried about file system redundancy, as the SBS file system data is replicated on the NAS several times a day. If the server were to go down and stay that way, the (few) users on the network would remap their network drives from the SBS box to the NAS and have access to a very recent version of their files. For this customer, this is adequate, as they are extremely cost-sensitive.

So, what do I need to do to back up the SBS DC functions, if anything? Can users run off cached credentials for the couple of days it might take to bring a seriously ill server back online? A second server running Server Standard Edition and acting as BDC seems like overkill.

Thanks very much.

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footech

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rmccraw

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Happily, there is no printer sharing, and no authentication is required to hit the NAS. (I was never able to get AD support running in the NAS, and maybe that's a good thing.)

Thanks for reminding me about DNS. Yes, the SBS box supplies DNS for the clients, but it's nothing fancy. They can work around that problem without much trouble.

Sounds like they're good to go. Thank you for the quick response.