Virtualize 2nd 2008 domain controller

williamwester3373 · 2012-01-30T21:27:13.000Z

I have created a new new/first 2008 R2 domain controller for the small network of my new employer. Seeing that I don’t have another physical computer at the moment I was thinking of running a backup 2008 controller in a virtual machine on my administation workstation (WMWare Workstation); at least temporarily until I can implement a physical controller down the road.

Any gottcha’s or comments?

brad · 2012-01-30T22:03:15.000Z

2 dc’s are always better than one

benjaminwakefield6816 · 2012-01-30T22:52:33.000Z

Hello,

I’m just thinking out aloud – so I’m sure I’ll be corrected!

If you had VMWare Workstation you’d probably be able to build it on your desktop, then install ESXi on your new physical box when you get it and just copy the machine to a VM running on the different hardware instead of setting it all up again.

Otherwise, I think when you built the new machine, if you join it to the domain (so you had three running at once), you’d have to go and remove the server in you desktop VM from active directory.

?

divide-and-realign · 2012-01-30T23:26:01.000Z

No real gotchas,perfectly viable option. One thing to watch for though - don’t snapshot and restore snapshots on a “secondary” DC as the AD will have a fit of note when it sees a sudden desync

leifjohnson · 2012-01-31T02:58:03.000Z

Its a really good solution, youve got ad redundancy. A physical one so the the vm hosts can join the domain. And all the benefits of a virtual one, for easy backups and disaster recovery etc.

Its a win win win situation.

danielparker6615 · 2012-01-31T03:57:23.000Z

The only gotcha I can think of is make that you can access your machine via a local account to start the Secondary DC VM. This would be in-case the primary one failed and the secondary wasn’t running for some reason

hermanmaglalang · 2012-01-31T05:06:07.000Z

for now, get a real good UPS, for those just-in-case moments.

martinpeverley · 2012-01-31T06:20:21.000Z

Only gotcha I can throw out is the license, make sure you have one.

Otherwise two DC’s are better than one. Both mine are virtual.

derek-a · 2012-01-31T06:32:51.000Z

2 definitely are better than one. All of my DC’s are virtual.

bryandoe · 2012-01-31T07:44:17.000Z

My two DC’s are virtual as well. A few years ago I had limited funds - I could get the Server license, or cheap hardware, but not both. I got the Server license and install VMware Server on a Linux server. It was far less than ideal (VMware Server is pretty bad) but it did what I needed until I was able to move to ESXi the next year. There’s really no way a second DC is a bad thing.

As mentioned, don’t snapshot the VM, and I’d probably avoid any P2V stuff, too - it’s easy enough to add a simple DC. It’d be good if this administration workstation wasn’t used that much just so something on it isn’t risking knocking out a DC. In fact, if you have a spare desktop of average specs, that would work well too.

johnwhite · 2012-01-31T09:59:08.000Z

Having a second DC is always good for continuity of services. It sounds like you’ve found a way to do it, though it’s sub-optimal. It’ll take resources away from the workstation. If you use it as a bridge, then do it.

Just beware of it becoming a long-term solution. It should be a medium-to-high priority item to replace.

jeff9866 · 2012-01-31T10:34:21.000Z

Everything you could possibly want to know about virtual DCs:

learn.microsoft.com

Virtual Active Directory Domain Services Domain Controllers Hyper-V

The 10,000-foot view:

learn.microsoft.com

Host AD DCs in virtual hosting environments - Windows Server

Discusses the issues that affect a DC that runs as a guest operating system (OS) in virtual hosting environments in Windows Server.

lewisdaynes1742 · 2012-01-31T15:11:26.000Z

Sounds like a good idea! Let us know how it goes, performance etc. Would be nice to have a reference to that kind of test for the future.