0

Company has domain that they need to migrate from (dobbde.com) into (dobbde123.com).

They have a 2003 file server in dobbde.com and we want to deploy a 2012 file server in dobbde123.com. They have two domain controllers in dobbde.com (2003) and we have two domain controllers in dobbde123.com (2012).

Any pointers on the best way to go about this? Is there a way to do it DC at a time?

Would it be best to use robocopy or something equivalent to this for the file servers?

Andrew Schulman
  • 8,811
  • 21
  • 32
  • 47
user455792
  • 1
  • 1
    I don't understand. You have two different AD domains, so what is there to migrate other than the data? What's the conundrum? – joeqwerty Feb 08 '18 at 18:12
  • They have a number of mapped user drives from Group Policy under docs.Dobbde.com d:\ duckandgun e:\ france f:\ ukoffice Z:\Germany D:\Duckandgun has a number of user shares on it which need to be migrated one at a time: D:\fish D:\boat D:\Haul D:\port What would be the best way to do this part of the migration? Robocopy? Is there an easier way to do this part? Am I missing something? – user455792 Feb 08 '18 at 18:32
  • Are you asking like.. copy the files, then update the logon scripts to point to the new server? AFAIK that's all it takes to migrate a share from one file server to another. You can't really migrate a domain. I'm not sure what that phrase would even mean. Do you need to create user accounts in the new domain that match the ones in the old? – Todd Wilcox Feb 08 '18 at 20:18

1 Answers1

2

Personally what I would have done is

  1. Joined a new 2012 machine to the old domain (dobbde.com)
  2. Promoted it to a DC.
  3. Allowed it time to sync and all the data users to be copied.
  4. Moved the FSMO roles to the new server; ensure that DNS and DHCP are also moved if they were on the old 2003 DC
  5. Demoted the old 2003 DC and remove it.
  6. Upgraded the functional level of the domain from 2003 to 2012 or anywhere in between
  7. Make changes so that (dobbde.com) is now (dobbde123.com)

I have done this a few times and is my preferred way, you can also do it with very little if any down time of the domain.

RickWeb
  • 285
  • 2
  • 13
  • They have a number of mapped user drives from Group Policy in file.dobbde.com d:\ duckandgun e:\ france f:\ ukoffice – user455792 Feb 08 '18 at 18:24
  • A big caveat on point 7 : if you have Exchange, you can't rename your domain. You probably don't need to change your domain name, anyway. – mfinni Feb 08 '18 at 21:30
  • @user455792 just move the file share onto the new server and update the group policies. Once you have moved them makesure they no longer accessible in there old locations then push out a GP update. – RickWeb Feb 09 '18 at 01:00