AD Replication between two remote sites

[ericargyle]

I am setting up new infrastructure for a school in our town. They are currently mac only with an XServe running the show. The school is a bit different than everything I've worked with in the past as there are two schools that are remotely apart. (3 miles away) Each school has it's own XServe and it's own ISP currently, and as I'm moving to Windows 2008 R2 at each site, with Windows 7 machines as clients, what is the best way to replicate AD, and to have everything just talk to each other. Any VPN product you can recommend? Any better ways? Thanks for your help guys.

[cluberti]

You might consider putting a Forefront TMG or ISA box at each site and use the site-to-site connection, or or go with a Cisco PIX solution at each site to do the same. If the ISPs were the same for both schools you could have simply gotten the ISP to set up your own virtual network, but if they're different you will have to do it yourself. There are other solutions that will work, but Cisco PIX and ISA/TMG are the ones I've used in the past with the most success (even on slow links). Just make sure you create two separate sites in AD for each school to keep replication across the WAN to a minimum.