Running a Domain Controller as 1 VM & a RODC as another on the same machine, will it work?

Question

I have been tasked with replacing our current network using Windows Server 2008 Virtual Machines running on Hyper-V, my question is will a DC as 1 VM work and a RODC as another work on the same machine?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 07 '09 at 17:16

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I can't think of any reason why you couldn't run two domain controller VMs on the same host machine, one of them being a read-only domain controller (assuming you can deploy an RDOC in the first place).

Why would you do that, though? Typically, you'd be deploying an RDOC into a physical location like a branch office, or somewhere with poor physical security. Running both on the same host doesn't make much sense to me.

answered Jul 07 '09 at 17:16

Evan Anderson

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Not to mention the complete lack of redundancy against hardware failure. That is, unless the VM host has some kind of redundancy, but I'm guessing it doesn't. – Russ Warren Jul 07 '09 at 17:18
not to mention pulling the plug on the HYPER-V host...ouch! – Saif Khan Jul 07 '09 at 17:39
They would be 2 entirely different domains, there would be another Hyper-V server running 2 VM's with a DC and a RODC. – stead1984 Jul 08 '09 at 10:03
Ahh.... I see. Yeah-- that should work fine. – Evan Anderson Jul 08 '09 at 13:08

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 07 '09 at 17:18

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Yes, they will work, although I would ask what your reasoning for doing so would be, as they are both running on the same hardware you don't get any redundancy in that respect and they are both in the same physical location, so no benefit there.

answered Jul 07 '09 at 17:18

Sam Cogan

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 07 '09 at 19:55

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There are no technical reason why this won't work. However, Microsoft recommend againt running DCs as VMs and I don't know what the support situation with Microsoft will be.

answered Jul 07 '09 at 19:55

TheMoo

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Ahh, that may pose a problem if they don't support DC's running on VM's – stead1984 Jul 08 '09 at 10:04
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MS does support running DCs in a VM. Just don't do snapshots or suspend the guest and be careful with your time synchronization. – Doug Luxem Nov 10 '09 at 21:27

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 10 '09 at 21:18

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I'm running 2 of my DCs on ESX, running DCs is fully supported by Microsoft.

answered Nov 10 '09 at 21:18

JamesBarnett

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Running a Domain Controller as 1 VM & a RODC as another on the same machine, will it work?

4 Answers4