AD positioning

[jayray001]

Hi All,

If I have 2 Unity serves (Pri and Failover)and one Exchange server and custome wants AD redundancy, I can run Pri AD in the Exchange box but which box out of the 2 Unity should be a better candidate for Secondary AD. I guess the Failover Unity. Is that a right assumption.

TIA,

Jay

[Tommer Catlin]

If you have say over 1000 subscribers, I would put in a seperate AD box just to handle the AD requests and keep the loads of Exchange and Unity if possible. The seperate box would the have FSMO roles designated for it. But yes, you could AD on any of the servers, just watch your loads. MS does not recommend AD on Exchange, so follow Uncle Bill's AD rules and you should be ok.

[jayray001]

Thanks for your response.

I asked the client to get a dedicated AD. But I have no say over their budget so we have to work with only 3 servers. Thats why I need to know which 2 servers will be best for handling Primary and Secondary AD roles.

Thanks,

Jay

[Tommer Catlin]

You can get away with Exchange being a DC, but I would try to stay away from that if possible. The Unity servers can be DC as well, just keep the client informed about the downfalls if they load the Unity server will a ton of subscribers. AD will start to hog the resources.

So yes, just DCpromo whichever server you want. Unity should not care.