Can domain controllers be virtualized?
Using virtual machines makes it possible to have many different configurations of domain controllers. Possible configurations for an Active Directory domain controller and host (Hyper-V server) and its guest computers (virtual machines running on the Hyper-V server) are described in the following table.
Should domain controller be physical or virtual?
No, you don’t need a physical domain controller. I do prefer to have one virtualized dc on entirely separate hardware from the rest of my environment though. One big benefit in advocacy of virtualization is that it’s much easier to stand one up on dissimilar hardware.
Can you virtualize Active Directory?
Since Windows Server 2012, virtualization for Active Directory is fully supported by Microsoft. VMware fully supports virtualizing Domain Controller (as long as you follow their recommended practices).
Can I have 2 domain controllers on the same network?
There is no problems in creating two domains on the same subnet. But you cannot use DHCP on this network. Because domain members may get different DNS settings which can create name resolution issues. You can only use static IP addresses for those clients on the subnet.
What happens when domain controller goes down?
If the Domain Controller (DC) goes offline, Authentication Services will automatically failover to another available DC. When Authentication Services needs to connect to a new DC, it examines the DCs it knows about, and selects an available DC using the following: Vas.
Do you need 2 domain controllers?
Yes, you should have two Domain Controllers. If your one Domain Controller goes down users will be unable to log in to the domain, access resources in the domain, won’t have access to their Exchange mailbox, etc.
How do you check if a VM is a Domain Controller?
Using the DomainRole property of the ComputerSystem class is a useful and fast way to check whether a Server Core installation of Windows Server is a Domain Controller, whether it’s domain-joined and whether it holds the PDCe FSMO role.