The move from a 2000 Domain to a 2003 Domain

Megadeth4168

First let me just start by saying that all my experience working with Active directory and Domains is based on our servers at work which run W2k server and W2k Advanced server.

We are currently in the process of buying new servers here at work. Two of the new servers we will be getting will be replacements for our current active directory servers.

My boss had at first thought we should just buy the 2 servers without an OS (save some money) and use the server licenses from the old AD servers (and then of course do away with the old servers)...

Well... We are coming in way under budget with these servers and I suggested the possibility of getting the new servers with 2003 server and then buying the 130 or so CALs we would need.

We are currently awaiting a quote for this just to see where this will put us (I should mention we also came in under budget on some new networking equipment)... Anyway....

I guess the big question is, how difficult of a proccess will it be to replace our current AD servers with new ones running the updated OS?

I'm thinking this is an after hours project and would like to know how smoothly it should go....

Thanks!

sprkymrk

It should be pretty painless and is a good idea if you can afford it. I thought the CALS would carry over, but I'm no licensing expert...

It's probably too much information here, but I would search MS for some info on the process. You should spend more time preparing to upgrade than actually upgrading, and it may very easily be something you can do during normal hours since you have 2 DC's.

I was able to migrate from an NT4 domain to an OU in a big 2K3 AD domain without working after hours too much. That included changing user names and computer names to conform to the new naming conventions of the bigger domain. In all, it involved about 450 users/computers. The new domain is one of about 12 in a forest, of which there are hundreds of thousands of users/computers. As I mentioned, the prep time was on the magnitude of months (research, implementation plan, prepare the trusts, etc.) while the actual migration took only a few hours.

On a smaller scale I migrated a 50 node Novell network to W2K AD, Sendmail to Exchange 2K, set up an ISA 2K firewall, and migrate to a new file server in 2 days (after about 3 days planning). That work did have to be done after hours (2 long 14 hour nights) mostly due to the file server migration.