I've heard the same thing - with AD it doesn't make any sense to have a site that doesn't have a DC in it - sites are used for replication and if there's nothing to replicate to in a site then why would you create an AD site? But with SMS, you can define SMS Site Boundaries and Roaming Boundaries with either subnets or AD Sites... guess which is easier to do for the SMS admin? So if the AD admins create a site for every area you'll have a DP in, then it makes it easy to set up boundaries. That is, it's easy if you trust that they are putting the right subnets in the right AD sites, and you get the right AD sites in the right SMS assignment boxes and spell them correctly. Barring all that, you could just add the subnets in the appropriate places in SMS and ignore the AD sites.
Rich
_____________________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of John McGlinchey
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 10:49 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Site Configurations and SMS2003
Sites are a collection of "Well Connected" subnets. That said, one persons definition of "well connected" can be completely different from another's. It really depends upon the bandwidth and network utilization between locations on your network. On some site designs I've set every location to be a site no matter what the bandwidth while on others I have groups locations together into a single site where bandwidth was "good enough" and the load put onto the network was deemed to be minimal. So, the answer is, it depends! I would think that adding SMS would make you rethink how you have grouped your sites to optimize the use of the SMS distribution points. Too many users hitting the distribution points will put a significant load on the location to location links and that would move you towards defining a location to be in a separate site.
Just my $.02. Coming out of lurking mode. Great list. Thanks for being here.
John McGlinchey, MCSA, MCSE, CCNA
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
_____________________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Ayers, Diane
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 11:18 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ActiveDir] Site Configurations and SMS2003
All:
I know that this is somewhat off topic (SMS) but I had a recent conversation with some folks in regards to AD and SMS 2003. We are looking at possibly deploying SMS 2003 and looking at some deployment scenarios. Anyway the conversation turn to the AD sites and what is the best configuration for sites in an organization.
Briefly we have a highly connected backbone with DCs spread around key nodes on this backbone to support the geographical locations spurred off of this backbone. We developed our AD sites around these nodes (5 geo locations, 5 AD sites) with all the "downstream" geographic locations for each DC being rolled into the site.
It was recommend that we make each geographic location that are rolled up to the main sites we have now a separate site in AD irregardless if this geographic location has DC or not. Site connectors would be built between those sites that have DCs and for those sites that don't have DCs, we'd have to go in and hack the _kerberos._tcp.<site name>._sites and the _ldap._tcp.<site name>._sites SRV records so that they would refer to the correct DC.
I'm still trying to grasp the nuances of sites in AD but this seemed to be an usual approach to sites in AD. Granted that SMS 2003 does bring some twists to the picture as a client will need to identify a distribution point from it's AD site. We have over 200 individual geographic sites with approx 180 software distribution boxes that we'd make distribution points. That would translate to 180 AD sites (sites mapped to distribution points). My basic understanding of sites is that the should be built around DCs.
This is a simply summary of what was discussed but I was wondering if there was some opinions one way or another over the best way to approach sites in AD. Obviously each case is different but wanted to capture folks thoughts.
Diane
-------APPLEBEE'S INTERNATIONAL, INC. CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE------- PRIVILEGED / CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION may be contained in this message or any attachments. This information is strictly confidential and may be subject to attorney-client privilege. This message is intended only for the use of the named addressee. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, unauthorized forwarding, printing, copying, distribution, or using such information is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this in error, you should kindly notify the sender by reply e-mail and immediately destroy this message. Unauthorized interception of this e-mail is a violation of federal criminal law. Applebee's International, Inc. reserves the right to monitor and review the content of all messages sent to and from this e-mail address. Messages sent to or from this e-mail address may be stored on the Applebee's International, Inc. e-mail system.
