complex SBS 2003 design really need some expert advice - please he

Hello all,

I have a very complex system that I have been more or less handed recently....

Here goes....

There is a large organisation, with its own WAN (thousands of nodes) within
that orgaisation there is a smaller one with its own LAN (this is the one I
work for as a project manager it has about 30 nodes) anyway this small
organisation purchased SBS 2003 a few months back to use strictly for the
exchange calendar sharing features.. (the systems admin made that decision)
anyway the Large organisation has its own domain and the small orgaisation is
a child of that domain...


Here is where it gets ugly, the large organisation provides all the IP
addresses that are basically linked to the MAC address of each device... the
large organisation controls all the addressing.


The SBS server was set up to relay the IP addresses from the large
orgaisations DHCP system...

There are two other application servers on the system.. one server runs an
accounting program and a large database software appilaction.. the other is a
file and print server.


Ok I have lsome technical knowledge of SBS and have only set it up a few
times in small 5-15 user enviroments...

What I would like to do is set up SBS for use with its full benefits such as
ISA, Sharpoint Exchange and so on....

The Large organisation has told me that they will forward the neccessary
ports for e-mail, MX, RDP, vpn and so forth...

My questions, is there any documentation on a system like this?

Can I use the server to its fullest potential if the DNS and WINS isn't
pointing to the server? and the server is just relaying the IP addresses...

can sbs function as a child domain? (I though it can only be a domain and
nothing else)

to make things worse, the small business is opening a second location that
will be included in WAN and will be given its own subnet (different from the
subnet of the first locaiton) can we tie the two subnets in together?

Oh no , better yet we are buying a new software package that can either run
off citrix, terminal services or the network but I don't have a clue on how
to link the two subnets together...

any advice would be greatly appreciated


There are some seriously complicated issues with this. What do I do?

Please Help

Thank you,

Kathy

 

it's _almost_ a case of 'Someone sold them the wrong product'.

SBS _must_ be 'root of the forest', the primary DC in an Active Directory.
It must hold _ALL_ FSMO roles, so cannot be a child in a larger forest. SBS
does not support trusts to other domains.

All that said, I support an SBS for a company which is part of a much larger
organistation, it is the perfect product for them. The larger organisation
though recognises that each of the smaller companies making up it's parts
need a level of autonomous control.

Tell the parent to get stuffed, or SBS doesn't fit.

 

And if the parent doesn't agree to be stuffed then your small
sub-organization admins made the wrong decision to buy SBS only for its
Exchange calendar sharing features.

 

In

No kidding. "complex" isn't the word I'd use, though. Euphemisms include
"icky"....

That is a silly way to control DHCP, which I suppose is their purpose. If
they want to lock down access to the network, there are other ways, but the
good ones aren't simple.

Not using NAT on your network?

My question is: why would you be using SBS at all in this environment? Who
'owns' the network?

All clients and the SBS box itself must point at an internal DNS server that
is responsible for that AD domain, basically. It doesn't have to be SBS; it
doesn't even have to be AD-integrated, but it does have to support dynamic
updates, etc - I would leave it on SBS. Use forwarders to handle external
requests.

WINS is not routable and needs to be local (it can have replication partners
elsewhere, though). However, that may not be an issue in this case.

No, it has to be the boss of its own AD domain.

You can't really link your domain to theirs at all if you use SBS.
TS might be a good option.

Time for a meeting with all the parties involved in managing IT for your
company to determine needs, and who is going to support what. I personally
would not put SBS on this network, but I don't know all the details, of
course.

Planning, planning, planning!