Setting up Windows Server / Active Directory / DNS for small busin

From: Peter (Peter_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 12/27/04 

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 15:47:01 -0800

Hi all,

I am a part-time system administrator for a small business that currently
has a Windows NT domain with approximately 10 workstations. I recently
purchased a new server computer that has windows 2003 server pre-installed.
I haven't even taken it out of the box yet because I am currently "studying"
Windows Server 2003, Active directory, and DNS, as this is the first time
I've had a chance to work with them. I'm thinking it would be much better to
design and implement the "new" network correctly using best practices rather
than just guessing what the appropriate solution would be. I've done some
searching but haven't found anything particularly useful describing best
practices for a small business in our situation, which I can't believe is
that unique.

I will describe the current setup and am looking for some input on what the
new setup should look like. Since it is a small business with very few
users, I'm not planning on "migrating" the NT 4.0 domain server to windows
2003, I'm planning on basically configuring the win2003 server as a new
domain and then having all the workstations join the new domain. Any files
(such as users' saved documents on the old NT server will either be burned to
CDs or temporarily moved to one of the workstations, and then eventually
moved to the new server once it is online. I'll just create the 10 or so
user accounts on the new server.

Current setup:
 - 1 Windows NT 4.0 Server (PDC) used primarily as a File/Print server
 - The current NT domain name is SUNRAY
 - 10 workstations running Windows XP Professional
 - Internet connection via DSL using a static IP address
 - The DSL router has a built in firewall and also acts as a DHCP server and
DNS server
 - All workstations in the network are configured to request an IP address
via DHCP, an internal IP address range is used
 - The NT Server has a hard coded internal IP address
 - Outsourced email and web hosting, the public domain for the web site and
email is SUNRAYVT.COM

Possible new setup:
 - 1 Windows 2003 Server used primarily as a File/Print server
 - It will also be the new DHCP server, and DNS server
 - Since it is a small network, we'll use 1 active directory
domain/site/tree/forest.
 - 10 workstations running Windows XP Professional
 - Internet connection via DSL using a static IP address
 - Continue to use outsourced email and web hosting
 - 1 employee will need to work remotely, so terminal services and/or VPN
will need to be supported
 
Its possible that sometime in the future we may decide to host our own
website and email, ideally it shouldn't require a network redesign to
accommodate that.

My biggest questions are about the domain structure and what the domain
should be called.

Should the new domain name be called SUNRAYVT.COM or SUNRAY.SUNRAYVT.COM?
Or should we register a completely new public domain name? Even though we
own the sunrayvt.com public domain, it is being used by the ISP that we chose
to host the website and email, so I'm not sure if it can also be used by us
for our windows domain.

If we did use sunrayvt.com, I'm assuming the workstations would be named
something like workstation1.sunrayvt.com, workstation2.sunrayvt.com, etc.
>From a workstation on our network, how would we be able to get to
www.sunrayvt.com, since its not actually a computer in our network? Is there
some sort of DNS setup that I would need to do to tell traffic for
www.sunrayvt.com to go to a certain external IP address?

Any input you can provide regarding my questions or other setup tips for
small businesses would be appreciated. Please also let me know if you know
of any resources for setting up windows 2003 in a small business environment.

Thanks!

-Peter

Relevant Pages

  • Re: SBS 2003 R2 Update Errors
    ... title Windows Small Business Server Setup ... Installing Windows Small Business Server 2003 ... string was not in a correct format. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
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    ... I'm trying to upgrade my SBS 2003 to windows R2 server but I get the ... Integration\Windows Small Business Server 2003\Logs\R2_Setup.log. ... SetOnlyCriticalAndSecurityUpdatesClassifications: Entering ...
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  • SecurityFocus Microsoft Newsletter #49
    ... Subject: SecurityFocus Microsoft Newsletter #49 ... Microsoft Windows NNTP Denial of Service Vulnerability ... Microsoft IIS SSI Buffer Overrun Privelege Elevation Vulnerability ... Microsoft ISA Server H.323 Memory Leak Denial of Service... ...
    (Focus-Microsoft)
  • RE: Security / Best Practice
    ... Firewall blocks everything that is not 100% business necessary ... No access to server unless critical need - create additional accounts ... All workstations - Automatic Updates, every day, auto-reboot on ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
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