Minimum Number of Domain Controllers

[Interface]

Hi,

Please read this and Can you tell me how may domain controller I need If I have 1000 domain users.

My hardware: IBM Dual P4-3Ghz CPU 73 GB SCSI HDD RAID1 and WIN2K3 SP1 Enterprise Edtion.

Have seen these

Don't put me in confusion

Any formula or tools not Statitics like Consultants and Professionals..

I Belive The Force............

[Thona]

Not sure how many you need for capacity....

...but the administrative minuimum is 3.

That is called double redundancy. You want basically one to work on (installing sp), one that fails (while you install a serivce pack) and one that is still around. That means you need 3 DC's minimum.

[cluberti]

The number of DC's you will need is not going to be something that we can determine until we know more about your environment - as in, how many different sites/subnets and OUs, DC hardware (cpu/disk/memory), how many Exchange 2000/2003 servers (if any), network speeds, roaming vs. local profiles, how many Terminal Servers, how many print queues in the AD, how many computer and user objects, and whether or not you are going to be using things like DFS.

Assuming decent hardware (dual processor/SCSI RAID/4GB RAM servers), for 1,000 users in an environment using Exchange, a few Terminal Servers, roaming profiles, lots of print queues, DFS, multiple sites, and a few thousand computer objects, I'd say at least 1 DC for each site. If you are going to have everything configured in one site, I'd say at least 2 DCs in that site (preferrably 3 or more).

[Mordac85]

You'll also need to factor in link speed to the sites since replication can be a major drain. Plus the number of users/objects in the site would need to be factored into whether it's cost effective to put a GC/DC in the site. Without a DC in the site, if you drop the link (for whatever reason) the user's won't be able to authenticate to the local resources so downtime would also be a concern.

The HW you referenced seems fine for W2K3 server if you have enough RAM, but cluberti has listed some of the more important architectural specs to consider.

[fizban2]

:-\ duals P4's? for a 1000 client base thrown in the money for Xeons or Opterons... the design benefits will help out the system greatly what ever the role of that server

[-I-]

You'll also need to factor in link speed to the sites since replication can be a major drain - >>>

thats is what a core switch would be a realy big help.

in general, if this user only nead ADC (no mail or other features) a minimum of 2 (1 to work on + 1 to replicate) if youd want mail servers too, things wil be diferent verry mutch.

but in that case you'd also better, think of contacting a consultant.