Moving FSMO roles

I plan to install a new DC w/gc on new hardware and transfer all the FSMO
roles from the existing DC. What are the best practices for moving them? Is
there a certain order, waiting period between moving roles, etc.? Very
simple environment - 2 dc's, default site config, 1 domain. The old and new
servers will be in the same vlan, same physical location. The other dc (not
a gc) will be in a different office (25mi.) - GigE 100Mb WAN connection.
Thank you!

Betzold,
Wed Jul 09 11:38:08 PDT 2008

I prefer to use NTDSUTIL but you can also use the gui. No specific order
or time wait. Make sure you are a schema admin or you won't be able to
move the schema master role.

Fetzer wrote:
> I plan to install a new DC w/gc on new hardware and transfer all the FSMO
> roles from the existing DC. What are the best practices for moving them? Is
> there a certain order, waiting period between moving roles, etc.? Very
> simple environment - 2 dc's, default site config, 1 domain. The old and new
> servers will be in the same vlan, same physical location. The other dc (not
> a gc) will be in a different office (25mi.) - GigE 100Mb WAN connection.
> Thank you!

NickHeusel
Wed Jul 09 11:45:00 PDT 2008

Your question is somewhat confusing with regard to how many domain
controllers you actually have. It sounds like you have two DC's now and you
are adding a third. Transferring the roles in a single forest/single domain
environment is straightforward. Just use the GUI tools (AD Users and
Computers, AD Domains and Trusts, AD Schema Admin, etc.) to transfer the
roles. If you are transferring them all to another DC the order does not
matter.

With all DC's in one AD Site the replication interval is 5 minutes, so there
shouldn't be any issues around replication delays like a multi-site
environment with so WAN links might create.

P.S. What exactly is a GigE 100Mb WAN connection?

--
Thanks,

Nick Heusel
MCSE, MCSA - W2K3, W2K


"Fetzer" wrote:

> I plan to install a new DC w/gc on new hardware and transfer all the FSMO
> roles from the existing DC. What are the best practices for moving them? Is
> there a certain order, waiting period between moving roles, etc.? Very
> simple environment - 2 dc's, default site config, 1 domain. The old and new
> servers will be in the same vlan, same physical location. The other dc (not
> a gc) will be in a different office (25mi.) - GigE 100Mb WAN connection.
> Thank you!

Fetzer
Wed Jul 09 11:48:03 PDT 2008

Thank you for the information. Will the users feel any downtime or
interruption from the fsmo moves? Also, other than supporting clients prior
to XP/2000 what is the purpose of PDC emulator? We have all 2000, 2003
servers & 2003 DC's, 2000 native mode, clients are XP and Vista. Thanks!

"Betzold, Adam" wrote:

> I prefer to use NTDSUTIL but you can also use the gui. No specific order
> or time wait. Make sure you are a schema admin or you won't be able to
> move the schema master role.
>
> Fetzer wrote:
> > I plan to install a new DC w/gc on new hardware and transfer all the FSMO
> > roles from the existing DC. What are the best practices for moving them? Is
> > there a certain order, waiting period between moving roles, etc.? Very
> > simple environment - 2 dc's, default site config, 1 domain. The old and new
> > servers will be in the same vlan, same physical location. The other dc (not
> > a gc) will be in a different office (25mi.) - GigE 100Mb WAN connection.
> > Thank you!
>

Meinolf
Wed Jul 09 12:00:15 PDT 2008

Hello Fetzer,

You can move them without downtime or interfering the users. Here is an easy
way with the GUI:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324801

I would recommend in your single forest domain, to make the new DC also Global
catalog and also DNS server. If you use Active directory integrated zones,
you have always a writable DNS server available. Ofcourse you have to add
it to the DHCP scope options or as fixed setting on the NIC. If you use DHCP
you can also split the scope 50/50 and you have redundancy here also.

Best regards

Meinolf Weber
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> I plan to install a new DC w/gc on new hardware and transfer all the
> FSMO roles