Why Are My Users Not Logged-on to a Local DC?
Hi Experts,
Most of my users are logged on to a DC at a remote site instead of their local DCs (some DC's are hundreds of miles away)? What caused this and why please, and how to correct this problem? Thanks.
Most of my users are logged on to a DC at a remote site instead of their local DCs (some DC's are hundreds of miles away)? What caused this and why please, and how to correct this problem? Thanks.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
FYI: Correctly configuring your AD sites also helps you control your replication traffic, as the DCs also use the links that you define and determine who they replicate with based on the network cost that you assign to the site links.
ASKER
@Joshua and Spyder2010 -- I'm still looking into this.. will let you know soon. Thanks.
The default, out-of-the-box configuration for AD is just one site, I think it's called 'Default-First-Site-Name' or something like that. All DCs are put in this site, and this site acts as an 'if all else fails' bucket... meaning that if a subnet is not defined in any other site(out of the box there are no other sites), it will default to be included in the Default-First-Site-Name. So if no one has configured your AD sites, you end up with all DCs and all subnets in one site, where any client can connect to any DC in the domain, with no consideration as to physical locations, network cost, etc...
If this is the case, and you have a geographically disperse network, you should spend some time planning which DCs you want to replicate with each other, and which sets of clients should be connected to which DC(s). Once you have your topology plan in place, it is fairly easy to create the sites and links, and define the subnets in each site... but do spend some time planning out the topology before you jump in.
If this is the case, and you have a geographically disperse network, you should spend some time planning which DCs you want to replicate with each other, and which sets of clients should be connected to which DC(s). Once you have your topology plan in place, it is fairly easy to create the sites and links, and define the subnets in each site... but do spend some time planning out the topology before you jump in.
ASKER
Different subnets and sites were defined for each of the physical locations. However, there is only (1) single IP site link for all the sites with the cost of 100 and replication interval of 180 minutes. Should I change anything here? Users are randomly connected to different DC's on different days... Not sure what else to make of this... Thanks.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER
..seems to be fine one day, and not another... i guess as long as they can logon quickly, then it's fine.. thanks both!
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc782048(v=ws.10).aspx
An AD site should contain all subnets in that particular site(normally a geographical location), and the Domain Controller(s) for that particular site. That way, all clients in a site know which DCs to connect to. You can also configure site links and assign them network cost... this way you can control which DCs your clients connect to if the DC(s) in their own sites are offline for whatever reason.