astralsu
Serrano
Apr 2019
My company has never had Active Directory. To make it worse, most users were setup as Admin accounts on their own PCs when I started here. I have slowly been overturning hardware, software, and security practices. I have a few questions regarding Best Practices with Domain Controllers, keeping practicality in scope.
Are 2 DCs necessary in a ~50 pc organization? Setting up my first AD DC from scratch and I want to configure everything properly.
Also, does it defeat the purpose of 2 DCs if both VMs are on the same host? Is it better to just have 1 DC VM per host, and no secondary? Would a second NIC on the host provide the necessary redundancy?
I think I understand most of the concerns for having 2 DCs including, replication, availability, and a failsafe in case of hardware crash. But purchasing 2 physical servers will be a stretch for my company. I will have to fight to justify the first server, so I don’t feel it’s plausible that they would purchase me 2 servers (hence the question about 2 DC VMs on same host).
All knowledge, expertise, and personal experiences would be greatly appreciated.
WINDOWS SERVER EDITIONS Windows Server 2019 Essentials is made for Small businesses with up to 25 users and 50 devices costs $501 Windows Server 2019 Standard is made for Physical or minimally virtualized environments and costs $972 Windows Server 2019 Datacenter is made for Highly vir
tualized dat…
