great point, though I don't think in this case there was any mention of Exchange being on the DC...?
At the end of the day, this conversation drifted into more of a 'what happens if we add the GC role to an additional DC' thread.
The original posting, as I go back and re-read it now, leads me to think that adding the GC probably solves nothing in this case. The reason? Patrick, you mention you're having DNS problems. I'd spend my time resolving that rather than adding GCs to the environment. DNS is the root cause of more problems than, well, just about anything in E2Kx environments. At least, in my experience, it is a big factor.
This is both true and not true.
In small environments it is common to see Exchange installed upon domain controllers (especially SBS and EBS and other small-number-of-server companies). While this is not a recommended configuration, it is supported.
In the case where Exchange is installed on a DC, that DC MUST be a GC; further, Exchange will ONLY use the AD services of that particular server – that is, there is no performance offloading or AD failover available.
For more information:
There is a link in that article to a similar article for Exchange 2003.
Regards,
Michael B. Smith, MCITP:SA,EMA/MCSE/Exchange MVP
My blog: http://TheEssentialExchange.com/blogs/michael
Link with me at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/theessentialexchange
From: exchangelist-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:exchangelist-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rick Boza
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 2:16 PM
To: exchangelist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ExchangeList] Re: Would an extra GC server help? - exchange 2003
Well, be aware that there are rules around what FSMO roles should coexist with a GC - specifically the Infrastructure Master should not coexist with the GC role on a DC, unless all DCs in your environment are GCs OR you are in a single domain forest. See http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2004/06/15/fsmo.html for a nice write-up on this.
And there is (or should be) no special action required to "alert" the Exchange servers that a new GC exists.
RickOn Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 2:05 PM, ajit yadav <ajityadav82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://www.msexchange.org
-------------------------------------------------------Hi Patrick,
I also agreed with Andrew, you have to just promote one DC as GC and exchange server will automatically discover the new GC.
Regards
Ajit kumar
Blackberry & Messaging Support Engineer
--- On Tue, 2/12/08, Andrew McHale <Andrew.McHale@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Andrew McHale <Andrew.McHale@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [ExchangeList] Re: Would an extra GC server help? - exchange 2003
> To: exchangelist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Tuesday, 2 December, 2008, 4:49 PM
> Hi Patrick,
>
>
>
> According to the mailing list at www.activedir.org (an
> awesome Active
> Directory mailing list with both MVP's and Microsoft
> Directory Services
> designers subscribed) the more GC's the better,
> particularly in a small
> environment like yours (which sounds spookily like mine).
>
>
>
> You wouldn't want to have remote DC's as GC's
> due to the amount of data
> to be replicated, but when the DC's are directly
> connected (via LAN) it
> makes it quicker for Exchange to resolve things.
>
>
>
> As far as I know you don't need to do anything on the
> Exchange server.
> Just promote the other DC to GC and Exchange will find out
> via AD
> replication.
>
>
>
> I would advise you do some searching for past questions
> regarding
> multiple GC's on the activedir.org web site rather than
> take what I have
> said for gospel but this is what I have heard several times
> I believe.
>
>
>
> Andrew
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Patrick [mailto:london31uk@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: 02 December 2008 10:44
> To: exchangelist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [ExchangeList] Re: Would an extra GC server help?
> - exchange
> 2003
>
>
>
> Ok, so should not have any adverse effect. How do I then
> point the new
> GC to exchange ?
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Brian Pituley <bpituley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: exchangelist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Monday, December 1, 2008 9:03:33 PM
> Subject: [ExchangeList] Re: Would an extra GC server help?
> - exchange
> 2003
>
> AFAIK, redundant GCs are always a good idea.
>
>
>
> Brian Pituley
>
> Director of Information Technology
>
> T: 408-441-3611
>
> F: 408-441-8405
>
> E: bpituley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
> From: exchangelist-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:exchangelist-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> Patrick
> Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 12:48 PM
> To: exchangelist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [ExchangeList] Would an extra GC server help? -
> exchange 2003
>
>
>
> Hi guys,
>
>
>
> I have just inherited a new site, and it looks like they
> are having
> issues with thier main dc.
>
>
>
> I recently installed exchange 2003 on windows 2003, but all
> of a sudden
> exchange has started fall off, on closer inspection, it
> looks like the
> DC is having some sort of network issue, affecting dns and
> GC.
>
>
>
> Current environment
>
>
>
> 2 DC's
>
> 1 Exchange server. All windows 2003.
>
>
>
> My question, would it help to make the second dc a Global
> Catalog
> server? so as to maintain some sort of redundancy while we
> figure out
> what to do with the Primary DC. Any issues to expect? or is
> there no
> point?
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Patrick
