How to integrate the new AD domain controller + DNS with the current AD domain controller with no downtime ?

Hi Luis,

No, I plan to have different name and IP address since keeping the same name is going to be harder to cutover.

Dave and Sykes,

Thanks for the reply. No, it is just running as Domain Controller / Global Catalog + DNS and DHCP only for the remote office (different AD site but same AD domain).

The old 2008 R2 server does not have any FSMO role since the FSMO roles are held by the main DC/GC in the Data Center.

I guess it is just simple Next-Next-Finish deployment :-)

I've also checked in the AD domain, any server with static DNS is not using the DNS in these two servers that I'm about to decommission.
DHCP scope can be changed the day before the demotion I guess.

Cliff,

OK, so in this case how do I plan this properly ?

Can I reduce the DHCP IP lease to just 1 hour few days before the decommission process ?

so that on the decommission day, I can just wait one hour for the new IP to be assigned by the DHCP server ?

OK so the high-level steps will be:

1. Install & Configure the 2x new 2012 R2 VMs newDC1 & newDC2 as AD/DC&GC
2. Configure as DNS+DHCP server role
3. In the existing DHCP server oldDC1, add the new DNS server as newDC1 & newDC2
4. Reduce the IP lease from 8 days into 1 hour to make it in effect
5. After all workstation clients get the new lease, decommission / demote oldDC1 and oldDC2

Can anyone clarify if that is correct ?

Cliff,

I'm decommissioning the old 2008 R2 servers and introducing the new 2012 R2.

Hopefully the steps above I mentioned is correct apart from the DHCP scope lease modification that I'm modifying and importing with another steps (Powershell script).