Router or Server DHCP

[ecksmen]

I'm completely failing to see any benefit in assigning static IPs to PCs on a Windows Domain... please explain.

Desktop PCs which never move, and there's only a few of them. Where's the benefit of DHCP in this?

On a small, static network there is merit in not using DHCP (DHCP = configure DNS scavaging etc...). Sure, if its a large network with mobile users coming and going DHCP is the way forward but for 10 desktop pcs I'd give them static and not worry about DHCP.

 

[Yamahahahahaha]

Fixed that for you!

There is nothing that means you have to, I have worked in organisations that didn't use windows for either DNS or DHCP yet had fully functional AD domains and I have also worked in a few fuly integrated windows environments the differences are minimal and we encountered no problems what so ever. The only thing you need to be is carefull when selecting your network hardware to run DNS/DHCP not that it should be a problem on anything recent!

Given the size of the firm I made an (not unreasonable) assumption that the router they would be using isn't going to be terribly quick. Pushing the large load for a router onto a server which is orders of magnitude quicker makes sense from a practical standpoint.
DHCP is something I would tend to keep away from the edge of the network also if possible.

 

[bigredshark]

Probably irrelevant and not possible for most small networks but the server should be in a separate firewall security zone to the desktops, in which case using DHCP forwarding on the router is the correct course of action. In general, with AD it's best to let the server worry about DHCP so it can tie it together with DNS and any other tools you want to use.

 

[a1ex2001]

Given the size of the firm I made an (not unreasonable) assumption that the router they would be using isn't going to be terribly quick. Pushing the large load for a router onto a server which is orders of magnitude quicker makes sense from a practical standpoint.
DHCP is something I would tend to keep away from the edge of the network also if possible.

DHCP/DNS in a network that size a large load? I'm not saying the windows approach is wrong it's just your origional blanket statment was wrong and misleading.

 

[bigredshark]

DHCP/DNS in a network that size a large load? I'm not saying the windows approach is wrong it's just your origional blanket statment was wrong and misleading.

For that sort of router that such a site would have running a DHCP process on the router is a reasonable load. Certainly it's substantially more than not running one....