FSMO Seizing, the downsides

[ZeroHour]

Hi

I was wondering what negatives there are with seizing FSMO roles?

Imagine a fully replicated AD and then PDC dies permanently. Would the alt DC that has the FSMO roles miss out on anything because control would be seized rather then transferred?

Basically is their much of a difference between seizing and transferring control (other then MS recommending transfer) in regards to the data the resulting PDC has?

You can ignore DNS/CA issues, I am talking primarily AD stuff.

 

Cheers

[Guest metalmonkey]

Seizing means the original server doesn't know it's not the holding that role anymore so when you turn it back on, it'll try and be the PDC along with the newer server.

 

Transfering is done so both servers know who's doing what.

 

If you seize, never turn the original server back on to the same network without rebuilding it - thats the general rule of thumb.

[Diello]

Yup - if you know it's never turning on again, then seizing isn't an issue. It simply comes with a warning to stop people seizing them when they plan on fixing the hardware later.

[ZeroHour]

Yeh just thought I would double check. Yeh the old box will not be turned on again.

 

Thanks

[srochford]

With Server 2003 I seem to remember that ntdsutil will try to do a "nice" transfer before it does a sieze just in case the old server is still there.

 

I don't think I've ever tried bringing back an old server after siezing its roles (sounds painful!) - I'd guess i should try it to see what happens :-)

[FN-GM]

I have done this a few times. Fairly easy task to do. All you are really doing is telling the other server the activate the rolls, they are always on the DC’s but turned off as you can’t have more than one roll in a domain.