Hello, I need guidance on the following: I need to replace one of the 2 domain controllers in my parent domain with new hardware. A requirement is to use the same IP address because other servers and nodes that are statically mapped to this IP for secondary DNS resolution. Should I promote the new server, configure everything and then demote the old server and then change the IP of the new server to that of the old server? Or should I demote the old server, completely remove it from the domain and use it’s IP on the new server before I promote it to a DC. Thanks for you help!

http://web2.minasi.com/forum/search... There are a lot of posts on replacing a DC. Those are the guys who know best.

change the ip of the current DC, install new DC and use the ip you need, decom the old dc. You can change a DC ip address its no biggy. ad msdcs will be updated

Yes I'm sorry for the confusion, there are 2 domains in the forest each domain has 2 domain controllers. Domain 1 is the parent domain of domain 2. I need to replace dc2 in domain 1. dc2 is the infrastructure master. all other roles for that domain and forest are on dc1. dc1 is also a global catalog server. I plan on transferring the IM role from dc2 to dc1 in domain 1. then demoting dc2. I plan on promoting dc3 with the IP of dc2. does this sound like a correct course of action? Also according to MS there a conflicts with the IM role and GC on the same DC. Is this something I need to worry about? I plan on transferring the IM role to dc3 once it is online.

"Also according to MS there a conflicts with the IM role and GC on the same DC" Only in large AD implementations which your setup isn't. After all how many single DCs are running all the fsmo roles? No problem there. You should have at least two DCs running the GC Imagine the power of knowing how to internet search http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Teachin...