Exchange Server 2000 as a Domain Controller

[Ken]

I am going round and round with a co-worker about this topic...

He insists it is 'best practices' to have one of the Exchange Servers in the domain be a Domain Controller for quicker access to the Active Directory.

I think it is a load of crap, and a mail server should serve mail, a domain controller should process security and AD replication.

My feeling is if it doesn't need to be a DC then why put the added load.

Does anyone know of any benefit to setting it up this way?

Thanks,

`Ken

[Ofir Odeny]

Having exchange 2000 server as DC is not necessary,
and d oes not improve DCaccess.
Your approach is the right one.

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Ken at 9/6/2002 11:28:17 AM


I am going round and round with a co-worker about this topic...

He insists it is 'best practices' to have one of the Exchange Servers in the domain be a Domain Controller for quicker access to the Active Directory.

I think it is a load of crap, and a mail server should serve mail, a domain controller should process security and AD replication.

My feeling is if it doesn't need to be a DC then why put the added load.

Does anyone know of any benefit to setting it up this way?

Thanks,

`Ken

[John Slevin]

Here is something to think about. Exchange 2000 Server is dependent on the Microsoft Windows 2000 Active Directory for both user and configuration information. Exchange 2000 predominantly uses Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) to communicate to the domain controller and global catalog servers for this information. Exchange 2000 uses Active Directory very efficiently, but for many server and user actions a LDAP directory lookup is required.

When there are numerous Exchange 2000 servers in a Windows 2000 site, a very large LDAP load may be put on the Active Directory servers. By default, Active Directory is configured to have a MaxActiveQueries value of 20 (LDAP queries). This setting is the maximum number of pending LDAP queries that Active Directory can process.

So the point is this, if you have a slow network and your exchange server has the power then you may want to install your exchange server also as a DC. and enable it as a global catalog server. When I move my Exchange 2000 Servers to a cluster I will make it a DC and GCS, Not because of a slow network but to help reduce LDAP access time accross the network. I have 2700 users with a front-end and a back-end enviroment, my exchange server is a quad 1.3gig hz with 4 gigs of ram. There are many things to take into consideration i.e. Server power network speed backbone internet access. Hope this helps. johnny


Ofir Odeny at 9/9/2002 8:36:39 AM

Having exchange 2000 server as DC is not necessary,
and d oes not improve DCaccess.
Your approach is the right one.

------------
Ken at 9/6/2002 11:28:17 AM


I am going round and round with a co-worker about this topic...

He insists it is 'best practices' to have one of the Exchange Servers in the domain be a Domain Controller for quicker access to the Active Directory.

I think it is a load of crap, and a mail server should serve mail, a domain controller should process security and AD replication.

My feeling is if it doesn't need to be a DC then why put the added load.

Does anyone know of any benefit to setting it up this way?

Thanks,

`Ken