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Active Directory - Integrate or Stand-alone?

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by chipshopman

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Company A has bought part of Company B and has set it up as a standalone company (Company C). Company C has a short (<5months) time to extract itself from Company B's systems.

Company B runs Active Directory (W2K) and Company C needs to extract itself off Company B's AD environment, but needs something to replace it. Company A also runs Active Directory (W2K).

Company C consists of 2,500 staff using many, many critical systems and a large AD structure inside Company B's AD system.

The extraction is being run by Company C and Company A who bought Company C have very little time or budget to accomodate Company C's needs.

So, the question is, how would you go about getting the Company C off Company B's AD within the timescale and at minimal cost: Integrate with Company A's AD or set up a separate AD structure... Why?

4 replies

by now left tr

Company A who bought Company C have very little time or budget to accommodate Company C's needs????

Sounds like a collage project question....no Dice

by chipshopman

I wish it was a college project question. It's unfortunately my current situation working for Company C!

The Active Directory and Exchange projects are the most politically charged items on my programme and my problem is making the right decision for the situation rather than people's political agendas.

by now left tr

have a trust to the other domain while you migrate.

Either way you are going to need another domain of some sort when you leave the current one.

As for as Exchange goes - create the new domain and migrate the mailboxes but only allow webmail in the interim - this will keep desktop configs to a min.

Even better if you could replicate the current domain via DR procedures on different hardware, say a VM solution (Lower hardware needs) and run independent (subnets) from the other one - you would have an instant solution.

Just a few random ideas - hope the help in some way.

by mike

If speed and cost are such great concerns...

I can't think of a faster/easier route than a merge with Company A. I'd start by scripting the creation of 2500 users and mailboxes in A's AD structure.

For you, in Company C, your job is to get several DC's, file servers, print servers, etc, positioned locally, get everything possible off the desktops onto the file servers, and have the users log into the new (A) domain. In the existing AD structure (C), create forwards to Company A's exchange environment, so no email goes missing.

I empathize with your comment about critical applications... there's your headache. As with any time you bring a machine from a workgroup to a domain, or from domain to domain, applications may not even show up, or will need to be reconfigured (new user credentials, etc). Hopefully they were installed correctly the first time (Add Programs, or via "change user /install")... then they should work fine after the switch.

HTH,
Mike

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