Lesson 1: Planning the Restructure Process

In this lesson, you'll look at the benefits and challenges of a restructure process.


After this lesson, you will be able to

  • Identify the benefits of the restructure process.
  • Plan to deal with potential problems during a restructure.

Estimated lesson time: 20 minutes


Reasons to Perform a Restructure

In Chapter 1, "Introduction to Windows 2000 Migration," the basic definition of restructure was presented as a way of moving Windows NT objects into a Windows 2000 environment. In fact, the word restructure should be used at any time when there is a consolidation or rebuilding of objects from either a Windows NT or Windows 2000 domain into another Windows 2000 domain. Three situations in which you might use the restructure process include the following:

  • As part of the migration process following an upgrade
  • As part of a post-migration cleanup
  • As a new migration of a Windows NT domain into a pristine Windows 2000 structure

Restructure after Upgrade

Once all the domains have been upgraded to Windows 2000, it can be easier to then migrate objects via a restructure process into an already-upgraded (or pristine) Windows 2000 domain. For example, it's easier to upgrade an accounts domain containing 30,000 users and then perform a restructure on it.

Post-Migration Restructure

A post-migration restructure might occur several months or years after the actual migration to Windows 2000 has taken effect. The restructure could be because of a corporate business restructure or acquisition.

Restructure into a Pristine Environment

In the case of a migration to a pristine environment, you'll first create the planned Windows 2000 infrastructure and then incrementally migrate each segment of your existing Windows NT environment into it. This process is time-intensive and costly and should be considered only in the following circumstances:

  • Your current Windows NT environment is so badly designed that it's causing you numerous problems.
  • You're running a set of business- and mission-critical Windows NT systems and you can't afford to jeopardize their stability even for a few hours.

The more important justification for a restructure into a pristine environment is the second reason just listed. While there are many ways to keep your systems running during an upgrade (see Chapter 12, "Business Continuity"), if these methods are deemed insufficient and you do want to restructure into a pristine environment, the majority of issues you'll face are covered in this and the following chapter. Restructuring into a pristine environment will involve careful planning and running a parallel environment. It will require much patient and sensitive communication with users if any mistakes are made. It's the most time-intensive and costly solution, but the provision of a parallel environment does present the safest scenario for a migration.

Restructure Challenges

In Lessons 5 and 6 of Chapter 5, "Active Directory Design and Migration," the concept of a pristine forest was discussed along with the factors that you need to consider when deciding which domains to be restructured first. Assuming you've designed the best solution for your corporation taking into consideration as many of the management and infrastructure viewpoints as possible, you now need to consider further potential problems in migrating into a parallel environment.

Factors to Consider Prior to a Restructure

You'll need to think through naming conventions carefully because namespaces must not conflict if they're on the same WAN. Potential problem scenarios include the following.

DNS Names, NetBIOS Names, and TCP/IP Addresses

No two computers can have the same host name, NetBIOS name, or TCP/IP address. When running a parallel environment, you'll need to adopt a naming convention for all three of these for every workstation in the parallel environment. These names can't overlap with names and addresses from your current environment.

User and Group Names

When performing a restructure into a pristine environment, you'll be copying users from your existing Windows NT 4.0 domains into Windows 2000 Active Directory. You'll need to assess the user names and group names from each domain to remove potential redundancies where users have left the company or extra accounts have been created for them in other domains. As network administrators change over time, you might also need to resolve any user and group names that don't conform to your corporate naming standards. Redundant groups originally created for special projects that are no longer running will also need to be assessed for removal. Groups that don't conform to the company naming and structural standards will also need to be rectified. For example,your network might have inconsistencies such as on the one hand, having local groups contain global groups, while on the other hand, having other local groups contain the actual users from trusted domains. You might also have some global groups having direct access to resources instead of going via local groups. Finally, the issue of potential duplicate user names and group names will need to be addressed. Many of the migration tools will allow you to attach a prefix or suffix to a user name if a duplicate occurs.

Communication with Users

When migrating users to the pristine environment, unless you use third-party software, the users' passwords will be reset. You'll need to help users prepare for potential logon problems. You'll also need to plan for the extra volume of calls your help desk will receive about logon problems from users who might be unaware of the password change.

Additional Traffic on the Network

When running a parallel environment, the extra traffic might just be enough to overburden a network that's already running near full capacity. Your test environment should obtain statistics for the typical running of the Windows 2000 network plus the amount of additional traffic created during the actual migration process.

Lesson Summary

In this lesson, you learned the reasons for performing a restructure migration and the factors that you need to consider prior to the restructure, such as computer names and IP addresses, user and group name migration, and additional network traffic.



MCSE Training Kit (Exam 70-222. Migrating from Microsoft Windows NT 4. 0 to Microsoft Windows 2000)
MCSE Training Kit (Exam 70-222): Migrating from Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 to Microsoft Windows 2000 (MCSE Training Kits)
ISBN: 0735612390
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2001
Pages: 126

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