[ActiveDir] Test Environments

[WATSON, BEN]

I was hoping to get some input from some of you to better understand how you handle the design of test environments for application testing.  For example, I built a so-called “Offnet” which is a duplicate of our production domain.  We have a couple domain controllers restored from tape backup, we have Exchange running, and various other production services using the same domain name and hostnames providing for a very production-like test environment.  As time progressed, other production servers duplicated themselves into this test environment and we now have quite a number of people doing the majority of their testing in this environment.  Unfortunately, as more and more people have begun to use this environment for testing, we have found that people are beginning to step on each others toes.  For instance, I used this test environment to walk through the domain upgrade to 2003 and when there was some downtime other people were unable to do their own testing.   So I was curious, how do you handle providing a working test environment for people that need it?  At this point, we are trying to determine a better way for people to do their testing away from production.   Thanks, ~Ben