urgent - AD

[Netraider]

What do you need to get going?

[bgfx4]

Urgent AD Help Required

Hi I am in a contract and having some real problems with Active Directory 2008. It not actually my role to deal with Active Directory but its screwing all of my work. Any of you guys interested in giving some paid advice? You would need to be a real specialist on servers, AD etc as i know the basics and can't get this Devil to function properly.

[Sysman]

AD's not hard, as long as you have an ounce of common sense there is a lot of good guidance out there to help you in designing it. It gets more complicated the larger your topology or any bespoke extensions that involve getting deep into the schema.

As others have said, definitely some experienced backup. Having been the hapless end user victim of a recent migration, even experienced backup can get things wrong.

I'll add that a separate test environment is the way to go. Seal it off from production so it can't mess that up.

[Incognito]

moving a load of files from one org to another

setting up a new structure
shares
security
possibly virtual servers

its a grey area

Is it a new AD forest or as someone said just an extension to an existing implementation? If an extension is it the same domain namespace or a new domain?

Example, is it ComA.com being migrated to <NEW>ComB.com, or is it ComA being migrated to <EXISTING>ComB.com or ComA.com being migrated to Dept.ComB.com.

AD's not hard, as long as you have an ounce of common sense there is a lot of good guidance out there to help you in designing it. It gets more complicated the larger your topology or any bespoke extensions that involve getting deep into the schema.

[wurzel]

As a VB VBA Sql server dude, how quickly would I be able to pick up enough Active directory to do an AD migration ?

I have never even seen it in action

I did one last year using .Net.

Assuming you're not limited to old school VB6, you could do it in VB.Net - have a look at the System.DirectoryServices namespace.

[EternalOptimist]

bummer. I did a massive migration for the NHS to leed a few years ago.

the only little molecule I didnt do was the blooming AD. grrrr , that ll learn me

[Netraider]

Unless you are going to have back up that knows what they are doing I'd steer well clear. There are so many little gotcha's in AD migrations you have to have done a few before you can be confident you know them all.

WHS

[DaveB]

As a VB VBA Sql server dude, how quickly would I be able to pick up enough Active directory to do an AD migration ?

I have never even seen it in action

Unless you are going to have back up that knows what they are doing I'd steer well clear. There are so many little gotcha's in AD migrations you have to have done a few before you can be confident you know them all.

[Netraider]

If they are renaming or moving the AD to another AD Domain this could be quite difficult. I would possibly tempted to use a swing kit linky. I know it talks about Small Business Server migration, but the kit works for all flavours of MS Server, and I have used it in the past (Normally SBS to full server migration)

If they are just putting in new kit, and keeping the AD domain name the same, it is fairly simple. Build the new server (Real/Virtual), join it to the domain.... various options here.

Any other AD gurus got any suggestions?

[EternalOptimist]

Hi EO,

What sort of migration is it? Depending on what they are trying to do, it can be fairly simple.

moving a load of files from one org to another

setting up a new structure
shares
security
possibly virtual servers

its a grey area

[Netraider]

Hi EO,

What sort of migration is it? Depending on what they are trying to do, it can be fairly simple.

[EternalOptimist]

As a VB VBA Sql server dude, how quickly would I be able to pick up enough Active directory to do an AD migration ?

I have never even seen it in action