Global Catalog Domain Controllers (GCDCs) Placement

Global Catalog Domain Controllers (GC/DCs) Placement

The placement of domain controllers in Windows Server 2003 is the critical factor to improve the communication response time from an Active Directory query. Without prompt response from a domain controller, a user might have to wait several seconds to several minutes to merely log on to the network, or it could take a similar length of time to even view the list of e-mail recipients the user wants to send a message to.

This section deals with specific server placement issues for Active Directory domain controllers and global catalog servers.

The Active Directory Global Catalog

The global catalog in Active Directory is an index of all objects in an Active Directory forest. All domain controllers in Windows Server 2003's Active Directory are not by default global catalog servers, so they must be established as such through the following procedure:

1. Open Active Directory Sites and Services.

2. Navigate to Sites\< SiteName >\Servers\< ServerName >.

3. Right-click NTDS Settings and select Properties.

4. Check the Global Catalog box, as indicated in Figure 13.42.

   Figure 13.42. Making a domain controller into a global catalog server.