"I am drinking my second Labatt's not
having to make any difficult decisions"
now thats funny!
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joe
Sent: 17 Aug 2006 20:26
To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FMSO roles split, patch question.That is fine Deji, you can completely disagree as much you want, it wouldn't be the first time we haven't agreed. :)BTW, I never said Best Practice, I said this is what I do and I agree with Jorge. But in the end, I don't care about best practices, I do what I think is right and the least likely to cause me issues balanced by my efficiency of doing things.You could test something to within an inch of its existence and something still go wrong in production, there is no way to guarantee no issues will occur, that is why we test in the first place. If it could be guaranteed, MSFT would have already done so. So you can put your faith in god all you want but it is prudent to row away from the rocks as well.I am confused as to what disadvantage there is to moving roles? You seem to be saying since it isn't troublesome to seize them you shouldn't tranfer them. That is cracked.Note that I don't say do this just for patching, any reboot or machine specific core change and I will move the roles. It could be something completely unrelated to a patch that caused a failure, especially in a reboot situation. It is such an innocuous thing to do that can save concern and work in the event of a failure. I think if it is easy to do up front, it seems outright stupid to not move the roles and remove all possibility of an issue around them. If I had a DC fail while doing maintenance work, I don't want to have to have made up issues for me to deal with around it, just get the DC working again. I can guarantee you several large companies that I have done work for would all question the process if I didn't do everything I could to limit possible issues up front.I would argue, and have in the past argued, that a seize is not as good as a tranfer regardless of your thoughts on the topic. If that weren't the case, it is probably likely there wouldn't be two methods in the first place. Even now there doesn't really need to be two methods, you could have one method for transfer and if that fails it does the seize but they specifically want you realizing you are seizing. Even if this weren't the case, I would STILL move the roles because it is simple and innocuous and fast.In the end, you can do anything you want to to manage your environments as you see fit, but any environment I run will be handled as I indicated. I see it as such free insurance that is silly not to buy.Let me leave you with a scenario, feel free not to respond if you want.You and I are working on our enterprise environments. We need to patch or do something else which will require a reboot. I go ahead and quickly move the roles and you just go forward in patching, I am slow that day so it takes 30 seconds instead of 15 seconds to move roles and then I am patching. You obviously hit reboot first, uh no, the reboot hangs up or the server doesn't reboot or doesn't even POST. 30 seconds later I see the same thing... Assuming we built out Domain Controller Architecture properly what happens next?I go, well that sucks, I will have to fix that at some time and determine when I will make time for it and decide if I will troubleshoot and correct or just wipe and reload.You go, *&[EMAIL PROTECTED]. Do I fix this or do I seize the roles and you think about it while I am getting in my jeep and driving to meet friends or have lunch or dinner. (or alternately maybe some more junior admin makes the WRONG decision without you there..) Once you finally decide what direction you go, you then know what you can properly do. In the meanwhile, your decision may get pushed as users and admins start noticing things aren't as they should be. The GPO management tools are bitching about which machine they should talk to. Users changing passwords via tools using legacy API (yes they still exist even if clients don't) are all breaking. Password chaining isn't working for anyone that changed their passwords. Who knows what else is going on, you get to figure it out. I am drinking my second Labatt's not having to make any difficult decisions.All over a 15 second process handled by a batch file that took what maybe 30-60 minutes to write.joe
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Deji Akomolafe
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 1:53 PM
To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FMSO roles split, patch question.I completely disagree with you. I understand the thinking behind the move-roles-before-patch stance. I just don't buy into it. Test patch and be sure it doesn't kill things. Test your config changes and be sure it doesn't break things. Test, test and test more before you move into production.Then deploy to production. IF, in spite of all your tests, "something" goes wrong with one DC holding a specific role (or - perish the thought - ALL your roles), it's no big deal. As long as you have other DCs available to assume the roles, the target DCwill not care how they got the roles (graceful transfer or inelegant seizure).It's good to have a script that moves roles as you desire, but this does not fall into the realm of "best practice" in the scheme of things. Your energy should be invested in instituting a comprehensive patch/change management and testing operations practice rather than figuring out where to move roles to in case a patch eats your DC.
Sincerely,
_____
(, / | /) /) /)
/---| (/_ ______ ___// _ // _
) / |_/(__(_) // (_(_)(/_(_(_/(__(/_
(_/ /)
(/
Microsoft MVP - Directory Services
www.akomolafe.com - we know IT
-5.75, -3.23
Do you now realize that Today is the Tomorrow you were worried about Yesterday? -anon
From: joe
Sent: Thu 8/17/2006 9:31 AM
To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FMSO roles split, patch question.I completely concur with Jorge on his process. It takes a lot less hassle and a lot less feeling of concern to move a FSMO prior to an update of a machine than to have to seize the role later regardless of the reason of it going down. Especially when you have a script that applies the NTSUTIL commands to move the roles. A move of all roles in a properly scripted environment is a procedure that takes all of about 10-15 seconds. A seize on the other hand isn't something you should just quickly think about doing, you need to work out the consequences and make a determination in most cases whether or not you will ever bring that DC back up as it stands now. It is, IMO, a no-brainer if you have multiple DCs as it is isn't any real workload or concern to do it. When I am doing production ops I *always* move roles prior to making machine specific updates. I never assume a server is going to come back up after I say restart or in fact even go down properly without hanging. Now I understand the SBS thoughts behind it though... In the SBS world if you lost the DC, you have far greater issues than you lost a FSMO role for the moment. In the world outside of SBS, most people look at DCs as expendable. You set up 10 of them in front of you and 5 fell down you would be like, crap, I will have to fix those at some point. You set up an SBS DC and it falls over there are skid marks where you were previously standing. joe -- O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition - http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Susan Bradley, CPA aka Ebitz - SBS Rocks [MVP] Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 11:48 AM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: Re: [ActiveDir] FMSO roles split, patch question. As a person who tests/patches a bunch of single DCs.... I've never seen a "patch" kill a server. Driver update may and has, yes. Impair functionality of the server, yes. But kill it completely? Microsoft tests patches ahead of time and they would find ahead of time if basic functionality of a DC would be nailed. But if the server dies... it was probably on the emergency list prior to patching. Rebooting the box first ensures that you find these 'hospital bound' servers. Almeida Pinto, Jorge de wrote: > the reason is that is a DC dies during the patching you do not have to seize the roles....IMHO, I prefer transfering over seizing > > Met vriendelijke groeten / Kind regards, > Ing. Jorge de Almeida Pinto > Senior Infrastructure Consultant > MVP Windows Server - Directory Services > > LogicaCMG Nederland B.V. (BU RTINC Eindhoven) > ( Tel : +31-(0)40-29.57.777 > ( Mobile : +31-(0)6-26.26.62.80 > * E-mail : <see sender address> > > ________________________________ > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of John Strongosky > Sent: Thu 2006-08-17 16:55 > To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org > Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FMSO roles split, patch question. > > > I cornfused is this a standard practice as I thought you did not want to move the FMSO roles back and forth. > > john > > ________________________________ > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Almeida Pinto, Jorge de > Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 4:33 AM > To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org > Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FMSO roles split, patch question. > > > in addition to that.... > DC1 having FSMOset1 and DC2 having FSMOset2 > transfer FSMOset1 from DC1 to DC2 > apply patches to DC1 and reboot and check everything (event logs DCdiag, etc) > if everything OK! > transfer FSMOset1 and FSMOset2 from DC2 to DC1 > apply patches to DC2 and reboot and check everything (event logs DCdiag, etc) > if everything OK! > transfer FSMOset2 from DC1 to DC2 > voila (that's french)...done! ;-) > > jorge > > > > ________________________________ > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Deji Akomolafe > Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 01:52 > To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org > Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FMSO roles split, patch question. > > > It doesn't matter. > > > > Sincerely, > _____ > (, / | /) /) /) > /---| (/_ ______ ___// _ // _ > ) / |_/(__(_) // (_(_)(/_(_(_/(__(/_ > (_/ /) > (/ > Microsoft MVP - Directory Services > www.akomolafe.com - we know IT > -5.75, -3.23 > Do you now realize that Today is the Tomorrow you were worried about Yesterday? -anon > > ________________________________ > > From: John Strongosky > Sent: Tue 8/8/2006 4:49 PM > To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org > Subject: [ActiveDir] FMSO roles split, patch question. > > > We have our FMSO roles split between 2 dc's. They are Schema Master/Domain Tree Operator on 1 and on 2, the roles PDC Emulator/Rid Pool/Intrastate on the other. After I apply the patches from Microsoft what is the beat practices for the boot order...or does it matter? > > 1. Remote DC/GC's first > 2. no. 1 > 3. then no 2. > > > thanks > > > > > > > This e-mail and any attachment is for authorised use by the intended recipient(s) only. It may contain proprietary material, confidential information and/or be subject to legal privilege. It should not be copied, disclosed to, retained or used by, any other party. If you are not an intended recipient then please promptly delete this e-mail and any attachment and all copies and inform the sender. Thank you. > > -- Letting your vendors set your risk analysis these days? http://www.threatcode.com If you are a SBSer and you don't subscribe to the SBS Blog... man ... I will hunt you down... http://blogs.technet.com/sbs List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.activedir.org/ml/threads.aspx List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.activedir.org/ml/threads.aspx
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