RE: [ActiveDir] Replicating AD

[Ayers, Diane]

Title: Message

I was considering a process similar to what you describe to rebuild are somewhat "messy" existing lab setup.  Two things that popped into my mind that maybe you have a perspective on; How do you deal with those services that are integrated into AD?  Exchange, SMS and MOM all come to mind. Can you rename the domain?  We have arequirement to have a sperate name for our test space.  I know that Win2K3 has the domain rename capabilities but the questions above (e.g. Exchange) always seems to come into play. Diane From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Holme Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 10:53 AM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Replicating AD Boy THAT is the golden question from MY clients!!   One option I’ve seen used (and would be interested in other members’ opinions about) is to yank a DC out of production (cleaning out its meta data of course), putting that DC in a (disconnected) lab, and wiping ITS metadata of the other (production) DCs.  Sounds like a lot of effort to me.   A big issue is what you are testing and how ‘perfect’ your testing must be.  My largest clients have found “labs” pretty lacking, since it is virtually impossible to test all appropriate variables (incl link speeds, specific app servers & storage devices, etc.).  Assuming all you want to do is test an AD change, then sure, you could have a lab with your AD structure “mimic’ed”.    I’ve been slowly building scripts to help me do this.  I’d be happy to give them to you (email me at dan dot holme at intelliem dot com) as long as you promise to help me test and improve them… Once they’re “solid” I plan on releasing them publicly for anyone.   Dan     From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Antonio Aranda Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 9:48 AM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: [ActiveDir] Replicating AD   I’m trying to setup a test AD that's identical to the production AD with the same OU structure and user accounts.  I'd like to avoid having to manually creating them by hopefully finding a tool that would import all those object.  Does any one know of such a tool?   Antonio