Advice re possible domain migration

[pete]

Without getting into too many specifics, we have a number of needs / annoying problems that can be solved in 3 ways.

1) A series of dirty hacks.
2) Migrating accounts, servers and data from one of our domains to the other.
3) Building a new 2008 domain and migrating accounts, servers and data from both domains to the new one.

All are doable, but I'm leaning towards #3 despite it involving the most work. I can build the new domain under Xen and migrate user accounts and data to the new domain and get everything well-polished before I do a final account/permission sync and robocopy and make it live. Being able to do the bulk of the work without interfering with everyday end-users makes this rather attractive.

Thoughts?

[Michael]

It really does depend on the nature of the problems, however, generally speaking I would agree doing things properly and putting the extra work in does pay off. It reduces your workload longterm and provides a top reliable network. Something I would recommend every network administrator to adhere to

[pete]

Assume the problems are the usual ones you have with a separate curriculum and an admin domain. It's a historical division which, while it does have certain advantages regarding security and access to data, it's becoming irritating and most of those advantages can be replicated with sufficiently granular security.

[Michael]

Generally speaking, you should migrate the admin side to the curriculum then apply appropriate permissions. Then upgrade to Server 2008 at a later date.