ADMT Advice:

n30_mkii

n30_mkii

n30_mkii

Associate
Joined
31 May 2005
Posts
2,124
Location
Alfreton,Derbyshire
Good evening folks. Quick scenario I'm faced with.

Tomorrow i'm out at a site where they have two seperate domains (used to be two companys). They have merged together and now exisit on the same network. They would ideally like a single domain name to represent the new company.

Servers are running 2003 standard. They have multiple users / groups and machine accounts in both ad's.

I do not have any spare kit to use, other than possibly a laptop. I'm trying to not disrupt the service too much. But was thinking the following.

Create a new forest and domain on the laptop. Backup the two servers.

User ADMT to migrate accounts from each domain in turn, also doing computer accounts. Merge it all into a single domain onto the laptop. Dcpromo the other DC's for the old domains down. Dcpro them to replicate the new AD forest. Move over FSMO roles and GC. DCPromo the laptop down.

each 'company' only has a single server at the moment, so this would also give them a little resilicence for the single domain, over two dc's.

Obviously I would need to migrate all of the share's etc over also. I was going to use something like secure copy? Or does ADMT also do shares? I guess not.

I'ts ages since I have done anything with ADMT, since I originally did my initial MS 2003 course I think. For it to work I remember needing to setup a trust between the domains. Anything else?

Any advice would be appreciated. is there a better way to go about this?

The only other option would be to rename one of the domains, and then migrate the other domain accounts over too it?
 
If they've got Exchange on either DC you can't DCpromo them. It stuffs Exchange.

I'd rename the domain and collapse the other into it.

I wouldn't be doing anything without doing it in a VM environment first.

You can move the shares over easily enough just by backing up the appropriate reg key, and making sure that the directories exist with the right paths and rights.

Use Printmig to move the printers.

Still a bit scary to be doing it tomorrow and making the plan tonight ! Nothing like life in the fast lane eh ;)
 
I'd stop and plan, this isn't a simple straight forward rock up and do it job. The cost to this business if you mess things up could be devestating think before you jump.
 
a1ex2001 said:
I'd stop and plan, this isn't a simple straight forward rock up and do it job. The cost to this business if you mess things up could be devestating think before you jump.
Click to expand...

We haven't heard from him, i wonder if he's still typing all the users back in and putting permissions back on etc etc ;)
 
Stolly said:
We haven't heard from him, i wonder if he's still typing all the users back in and putting permissions back on etc etc ;)
Click to expand...

I hope not, having been involved in putting permissions back on a file server that forgot them it wasn't pretty (I wasn't responsible for the lack of backup!)

I wouldn't have dreamed of taking on the job he described with a plan that consisted of asking on an Internet forum the day before and using a laptop in a critical role. However you never know he could be all done and basking in the glory of success right now.
 
Thanks for your concern guys. All went smoothly, ADMT came flooding pack to me. Made sure sufficient backups were in place, created a new forest and migrated both companies over. Took the chance to do a little restructuring and AD maintenance at the same time. Thanks for your advice though! I know it looked bad asking the night before, but I was fairly confident anyway.;)
 
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