Domain names !!

Ok, calm down first. Take a deep breath.

Ok.

Now, a NT4 to Win2K3 migration is not that difficult, but some thought and planning needs to be done before you jump forward with this.
First off, go here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/upgrading/nt4/default.mspx
(please remove any spaces)
And read the articles on a NT4-Win2K3 migration.

Now, as for domain names, when you upgrade one of the NT4 PDCs to Win2K3, you will have a choice of what domain name you want. It could be whatever you want it to be, admin.com, mycompany.com, mycompany.bob, etc. Whatever works for your company. (you will have to run DNS servers internally so the domain name resolves correctly.)
Now, with 2 NT4 domains, you do have a few choices on Active Directory forest structure. You could have 2 entirely different AD trees (admin.com and finance.com), and you could link the trees, making an AD Forest.
You could also incorporate the finance NT domain into the admin.com domain, making a singleAD tree domain.
You could also have the finance NT domain a Child Domain of the admin.com AD domain; it could be finananc.admin.com

So as you see, you have several choices. Hell, you could set up a single Win2k3 server as its own root domain (mycompany.com), then upgrade your admin NT4 PDC and make it a child domain of this empty root domain (making it admin.mycompany.com), and upgrade the finance NT PDC into another child domain (finance.mycompany.com)

Just think about what kind of setup is right for your company and go from there.

hope this helps

I recently went through exactly what you are faced with now. I had two NT 4.0 domains (as well as two Novell trees) to work with (my company was purchased by another).

If you have any plans whatsoever in sharing data between the two, the absolutesimplest solution (both administratively and for your end-user community) is a single domain model. A perfect example of the KISS methodology in action.

As far as naming your domain, I chose to use a dirivative of my Internet domain I have registered, except I replaced the .com with .ad
Works fairly well, its easy to differentiate between my .com DNS zone, and once again, its easy to administer.

As far as upgrading, its a fairly painless process. If you're upgrading only the OS foundation, and hardware isn't a problem, simply begin upgrading your BDCs to Win2k3 (a good practice is to remove one from service in case of problems), leaving your PDC till the end.

I'd also suggest picking up Active Directory Services for Windows2000Technical Reference from Microsoft Press... it'll give you a solid foundation as well as some best practices to help you along.

Good luck :)

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