Different Domains on the same IP Range

[techie08]

Is it possible to put different windows 2003 domains onto the same IP Range and subnet?
We have a cluster of diiferent schools on our site which all 3 of them have a fiber link back to my server room (for the Internet) and we are looking at the possibility if we can house the other schools servers in our Server Room so that they are easier to manage.

Also in addition to this, utilise my systems management appliances for the other schools as they dont have anything. eg package deployment etc as this is not linked into AD

Any help and advice would much appriciated.

[DevilsAdvocate]

As long as your DHCP Servers are set up to not assign overlapping addresses, then I see no reason this can't be done. I'm no expert though, so hopefully someone with more knowledge can chip in soon.

Rob

[Jamman960]

You can have as many domains as you like on the same ip range/subnet. Depending on the number of workstations in each site/building it may still be worth subnetting the networks anyway to keep the broadcast domain size down.

James

[powdarrmonkey]

If you want to integrate them that much (sharing deployment and so forth) you probably want to investigate having a proper domain hierarchy - where one umbrella forest has related domains as children. Doing the migrations is not for the faint hearted, but once set up it can be very benificial.

[FN-GM]

If you want to integrate them that much (sharing deployment and so forth) you probably want to investigate having a proper domain hierarchy - where one umbrella forest has related domains as children. Doing the migrations is not for the faint hearted, but once set up it can be very benificial.

I agree a forest can work well like this.

On the other hand at my last school they where a 15 domain forest, had problems with exchange on one domain dishing out addresses to exchange accounts onto another. Microsoft had no idea why.

[powdarrmonkey]

As long as your DHCP Servers are set up to not assign overlapping addresses, then I see no reason this can't be done. I'm no expert though, so hopefully someone with more knowledge can chip in soon.

Rob

Not quite: you'll be moving all services into one DHCP range. You can't run two ranges on the same segment, unless you employ VLANs.