No utilities or special steps are required to designate a domain controller as a standby operations master. However, the current operations master and the standby operations master should be well connected . “Well connected” means that the network connection between them must support at least a 10-megabit transmission rate and be available at all times. In addition, creating a manual connection object between the standby domain controller and the operations master will ensure direct replication between the two operations masters. By making the operations master and the standby operations master direct replication partners, you reduce the chance of data loss in the event of a role seizure, which reduces the chance of directory corruption.
To ensure that the current operations master role holder and the standby operations master are replication partners, you can manually create connection objects between the two domain controllers. Even if a connection object is generated automatically, we recommend that you manually create a connection object on both the operations master and the standby operations master. The replication system can alter automatically created connection objects anytime. Manually created connections remain the same until an administrator changes them.
You can use this procedure to create the following:
- A manual connection object that designates the standby server as the From Server on the NTDS Settings object of the operations master
- A manual connection object that designates the operations master server as the From Server on the NTDS Settings object of the standby server
Administrative credentials
Membership in Domain Admins, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure.
- Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Active Directory Sites and Services.
- Expand the site name in which the current operations master role holder is located to display the Servers folder.
- Expand the Servers folder to see a list of the servers in that site.
- To create a connection object from the standby server on the current operations master, expand the name of the operations master server on which you want to create the connection object to display its NTDS Settings object.
- Right-click NTDS Settings, click New, and then click Connection.
- In the Find Active Directory Domain Controllers dialog box, select the name of the standby server from which you want to create the connection object, and then click OK.
- In the New Object-Connection dialog box, enter an appropriate name for the connection object or accept the default name, and then click OK.
- To create a connection object from the current operations master to the standby server, repeat steps 4 through 7, but in step 4, expand the name of the standby server. In step 6, select the name of the current operations master.
