We have several (6) remote offices, each with 5-10 users, that are connected via 256K FR circuits back here to the corporate office. At the present time, they are used for F&P services, wins, and dhcp. We do have plans to implement SMS in the future for software rollout and desktop management. All desktop clients are W2K as well as most roving laptop users (the few remaining W9x laptops are being retired if they can't be upgraded).
I am in the process of replacing their older W2K server with a new one that has sufficient disk space, processor power and a larger tape backup. The question comes up as to make them domain controllers or not. If I want to control replication, I need to set up a site which requires a DC. OTOH, having a DC out there in the first place increases traffic too. Almost all useful information for the remote users exists at the corporate site (Exchange, AS400, corporate shared data, etc.) so they are pretty much dead in the water if the line is down anyway. I asked this question as last fall's TechEd and got a majority of opinions that making the servers DCs would probably not be an advantage to such a small group of users that are depending on the central system anyway to offset the DC traffic. Is this still the consensus? Although I could promote them later in the field, it certainly would be easier to dcpromo them there before sending them out. **************************** Pete Carstensen, MCSE Senior LAN Engineer CSK Auto, Inc. Phoenix, AZ Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/
