Currently, my only Domain COntroller, also my DNS server, has been subject to regular crashes. Obviously, when it goes down, my network stops as users cannot authenticate- Exchange, VPN access, etc. become completely useless. I added a second DC using DCPROMO on a member server, and that installed perfectly well. I tested to see if this addition would solve my original problem. I shut down my primary DC/DNS server expecting the new 2nd DC to pick up the slack and that everything would work. It did not. What am I missing?? I assumed that adding a second DC would solve any problems when the first one went down. I suspect this is a DNS issue; what do I have to do to get the redundancy I am looking for? In the WinNT days, the PDC/BDC with WINS on each took care of everything for me in case one went down; how can I get the same out of Win2K?? Thanks- Lawrence

This is my personal opinion mind you but, I really think you need to stop the original DC from crashing before you can hope to create any redundancy. Having said that, did you allow enough time for replication between the two DC's before shutting the first one down? You don't mention if you installed DNS on the 2nd DC....question: How do you expect to have redundancy on your network if you don't also have DNS on the 2nd DC?

Lawrence, you are correct in thinking that if the first DC is unavailable, the second will take over. Technically it doesn't 'take over' it's alway a DC. In w2k, all DCs are equal so the second DC can authenticate users as well as the first. Curt is correct in asking if you have DNS on the second DC. DNS can be set up to be Active Directory Integrated. This means the DNS information will be shared amoung the DCs that have the DNS service installed. So, if you install DNS on the second DC, which I would recommend, you should be ok. Having said that, there are few things you may want to set up. You should give your clients the IP of the second DNS server also. You can do this staticly or depending on the number of clients, you can do via DHCP. Also, the first DC in the domain will hold what are called the FSMO roles. These are functions that are needed for the domain such as PDC emulator, Infrastructure master etc. The machine carrying these roles can be down for awhile but will cause problems if unavailable for long periods of time. It is always a good idea to have more than one DC so I would consider remove the DC function from the problem machine if it can not be corrected. Once you install the second DC you should also move the role of Infrastructure Master off the first DC to the second one. Look in Event Viewer and you will probably see some error message referencing this. Hope that helps. There is a whole lot more to your question than can be answered here but you are on the right track.