Hi. We have 2 offices connected via dedicated T1, all equipment is in the big office, only router and switch in small office. Small office uses Terminal Server for network access. I have one server in the big office doing dhcp, dns, AD, TS, print, & file serving. (yeah yeah yeah, I know). I'm purchasing a second server to keep in the small office (in case the big office blows up). What would you guys with this server? The idea is to minimize downtime to recovery should the main server be destroyed.

I would make the new server a DC and put a copy of the Global Catalogue on it. This way if the primary DC should fail, the new server could take over until you fix the other one.

Curt, thanks for the reply. If I also make it a DC, it will pull a copy of the GC automatically...is this what you mean?

Plus make it the local File print, to cut down on the traffic. Plus a small backup device here, incase for the local end, while the Main office is down, You can go on, depending on the budget Hope this helps Dave

I'm not sure it will pull a copy of the GC automatically. In fact, I'm pretty sure it won't as it's not necessary that all DC's in a domain have copies of the GC. Really, you really only need GC's in remote portions of the domain since 1 DC with a GC can do the entire zone local to itself just fine...regardless of how many DC's you have locally. I just did a quick look in MS's knowledge base. Here's a link to an article on creating/moving GC's in 2000. I'm pretty sure the process will be the same in 2003....but don't quote me on that as I've yet to do anything with GC's in 2003. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;313994