Forum Discussion

Scott__Hastings's avatar
Scott__Hastings
Level 5
12 years ago

Multiple Directories in one Domain?

I hate asking questions like this (or being asked)

 

Can you have 2 separate Directories in one Domain? 2 separate Directory Databases?

 

On directory would point to Exchange servers A, B., and C, the other would point to Exchange Servers D, E, and F?

 

TY!

Enterprise Vault
Information Governance
Windows Server (2003-2008)
  • Rob_Wilcox1's avatar
    Rob_Wilcox1
    12 years ago

    Yes you can do this -- you just have to host the EV Directory Database on different SQL instances.

     

    Further you then have to carefully provision users. So are all those users on those Exchange servers identifiable by AD group, or OU or something?

     

    Finally though - why do you want to do this?

  • GabeV's avatar
    GabeV
    12 years ago

    Hi Scott,

    Q. Can you have 2 separate Directories in one Domain? Yes

    Q. 2 separate Directory Databases? Yes, in two different SQL servers (or instances)

    However, since all the Exchange servers would be in the same domain, you don't want to have Exchange Server A,B,C in Site1 and D,E,F in Site2 with a DAG configuration between them or moving mailboxes from A to D. If you do that, you will have lot of issues. You can definitely implement this configuration but you need to be more careful with the regular administration of EV and Exchange.

    I hope this helps.

  • Rob_Wilcox1's avatar
    Rob_Wilcox1
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    Yes you can do this -- you just have to host the EV Directory Database on different SQL instances.

     

    Further you then have to carefully provision users. So are all those users on those Exchange servers identifiable by AD group, or OU or something?

     

    Finally though - why do you want to do this?

  • GabeV's avatar
    GabeV
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    Hi Scott,

    Q. Can you have 2 separate Directories in one Domain? Yes

    Q. 2 separate Directory Databases? Yes, in two different SQL servers (or instances)

    However, since all the Exchange servers would be in the same domain, you don't want to have Exchange Server A,B,C in Site1 and D,E,F in Site2 with a DAG configuration between them or moving mailboxes from A to D. If you do that, you will have lot of issues. You can definitely implement this configuration but you need to be more careful with the regular administration of EV and Exchange.

    I hope this helps.

  • Scott__Hastings's avatar
    Scott__Hastings
    Level 5
    12 years ago

    Guys... this one one of those hair-brained things that I would never do and would never recommend that anyone do, I was asked to find out and I thought you guys wouldn't mind some easy points...

     

    Thanks

  • Patti_Rodgers's avatar
    Patti_Rodgers
    Level 4
    12 years ago

    Honestly I would not consider this "hair brained" at all--- it is actually a fairly common configuration in very large companies.  I support some pretty big companies who do exactly this, and have had no problems other than just needing a bit more time to properly align their DAGs and Provisioning Groups and such.

    If you pay attention to your architecture, you will have perfectly nice outcomes with multiple EV sites within one AD domain, each site having its own directory.  I even have one customer with **5** EV sites within the same AD domain. They've been running that way since EV6, and prefer it, because the site separation by directory means they can do their upgrades on each site at a time, instead of having to upgrade dozens of servers before their outage window runs out.

  • Scott__Hastings's avatar
    Scott__Hastings
    Level 5
    12 years ago

    Thanks Patti... I suppose you'd do this to keep information separate within organizations. I thought you could do it, but wanted to bounce it off the best brains in this business.

    I was asked this out of the blue with no real context, to I begrudgingly  posted to the forum. I appreciate the positive input from all.

     

    Thank you!

     

  • Patti_Rodgers's avatar
    Patti_Rodgers
    Level 4
    12 years ago

    Yup separating information is one reason to do it this way--- so long as you separate it properly on Exchange :)

    But the ability to upgrade only some EV servers is huge-- imagine the customers who have 40+ EV servers... busy weekend if you're going to try to knock those all out in one go!