Can you just script setting up the 80/20 rule on the scopes? I think there is a 
dhcpcmd.exe ...

Thanks,
Brian Desmond
[email protected]

c - 312.731.3132


From: Raper, Jonathan - Eagle [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 2:55 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: W2k3 DHCP redundancy / high availability

Ok, here goes...

Present environment - pure Windows 2003 AD, with two DCs. One is virtual 
(vmware esx 3.5), 2003 Enterprise Edition. The other is physical, 2003 Standard 
Edition (not sure why - I didn't set it up). Virtual DC is running DHCP for our 
entire organization, and would be a pain to go through and setup split scopes 
(many sites, multiple vlans per site, and thus, multiple DHCP scopes for each 
site.) A year ago, we were using Cisco devices at each remote site to handle 
DHCP for each subnet. We performed a major network overhaul and had to 
centralize, so here we are.

I've now been tasked with building redundancy for our DHCP services. Moving to 
Server 2008 is not an option right now. We MAY be able to upgrade the 2003 
Standard server to 2003 Enterprise, but that isn't a given just yet.

Issues...

Can't cluster, because of the Std Edition OS, (but even then, how would that 
impact AD & DNS?)
Can't backup from Primary and restore to Secondary, again, because of different 
OS (M$ says, "not supported" to backup from Enterprise and try to restore to 
Standard)
As mentioned, split scopes would be a major admin pain (it wouldn't be so bad 
if we had 2008, since there is a wizard in 2008, but I digress)

So, the way I see it, I have a couple of options...

Setup "secondary" as a "hot spare" but disable the DHCP service unless and 
until the primary becomes available. Use netsh dhcp server export 
c:\dhcpdatabase.txt all on a daily basis to ensure a valid "backup" of the 
primary, and copy that file over to the secondary as part of one scheduled task.

-or-

Setup secondary, authorize it, configure it, turn it on, (hear me out here) and 
setup IP Address Conflict Resolution at the server level on both servers, and 
let them "work it out" on their own. I realize that I wouldn't have any lease 
synchronization, and that there is a slight risk of duplicate IP, but I can't 
imagine there would be much. My WAN links are solid. Also, any scope or option 
changes made on the primary would have to be duplicated on the 
secondary...administrative overhead yes, but still less than dealing with split 
scope, IMO. Even then, couldn't I just export from the primary after I've made 
changes and then import to the secondary? I know lease information is contained 
in the exported file...trying to decide whether or not that would be good or 
bad... if it wouldn't be a problem, why not take it a step further and schedule 
an export/import from the primary to the secondary?

What am I missing?


Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE
Technology Coordinator
Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA
[email protected]<BLOCKED::mailto:%[email protected]>
www.eaglemds.com<BLOCKED::http://www.eaglemds.com/>


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