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Solution Accelerator for Domain Server Consolidation and Migration: Windows NT 4.0 to Windows Server 2003

Overview

Updated: July 27, 2004

The Benefits of Domain Consolidation

Escalating operational costs, inflexible infrastructures, difficulties in meeting service levels and attacks on security and integrity add to the difficulties faced by many organizations today.

Consolidating domains and migrating to Windows® Server 2003 Active Directory® results in less complexity, reduced risk and better standardization. Through a simplified, one-to-many management model and enhanced scalability of Active Directory, you can now easily reduce the number of domains, cut costs, and increase operational security. The efficiencies of scale generated from Domain Consolidation can give savings on the total cost of ownership (TCO) and also improve server and network utilization.

Enterprises are increasingly reliant on the availability of their IT infrastructure while these systems are under constant threat from malicious attack. Consolidating domains and migrating to Windows Server 2003, facilitates the enforcement of consistent security policies for access, usage and management as well as improving the monitoring of servers and the early detection of attacks.

Consolidating domains is now much easier to achieve allowing organizations to run and manage higher workloads on fewer servers. The bottom line is that consolidating servers and upgrading domains to Windows Server 2003 Active Directory is the optimal way of realizing the TCO benefits of Windows Server 2003. The key to consolidating an existing Windows NT Server 4.0 environment is to have a standard process for planning, designing, deploying, and implementing the project. To help you achieve these goals, Microsoft® has developed the Solution Accelerator (SA) for Domain Server Consolidation and Migration

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Solution Accelerator Highlights

This Solution Accelerator package provides referential and implementation guidance to enable end customers and solution providers to successfully perform a directory services migration effort. This documentation has been end-to-end tested and proven in a partnered lab environment. The final product consists of technical documentation comprised of a coherent set of guides, which creates a roadmap of why to consider an upgrade and then how to plan and implement a migration from an existing Windows NT 4.0 domain structure to a more desirable Windows Server 2003 end state.

The objective of the documentation set is to enable partners and enterprise customers to efficiently consolidate and migrate their existing Windows NT 4.0 domain structure to Windows Server 2003 Active Directory.

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What Is the Solution Accelerator for Domain Server Consolidation and Migration?

The Solution Accelerator for Domain Server Consolidation and Migration is a collection of documentation that presents a prescriptive, tested, and supported approach to planning, designing, deploying, and verifying a domain migration project. In the development of such a solution, the accelerator documentation addresses issues that are not typically discussed in the product documentation, such as capacity planning and scenario implementation.

This solution accelerator adds value and uses existing documentation by outlining options available, based on best practices, for the design and considerations of a migration effort from Windows NT 4.0 domains to Windows Server 2003 Active Directory service. In addition, it addresses the key planning and implementation considerations for the migration of supporting network services. A representative enterprise scenario is also defined and the guidance provides the prescriptive application of best practices to meet the business needs of a fictitious large organization.

Finally, the best practices planning and implementation principals presented in the Solution Accelerator for Domain Server Consolidation and Migration are end-to-end tested by Microsoft to verify accurate, repeatable results for users of this documentation set.

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