Saturday, January 8, 2011

Should you Export/Import your Virtual Domain Controllers?

MSFT says: No, you better not. (Deployment Considerations for Virtualized Domain Controllers


I say: Why not?
In general, that`s Microsoft recommendations, and most of the time, I truly respects MSFT`s recommendations. But I have never encountered any issues when exporting the DC VM from host A to host B, as long as the VM on host A never comes online again. I guess that`s why you want to move the DC VM - to use it on host B, and not as a clone.
From that perspective, I can’t see how there would be a USN rollback on a DC that is exported and imported. Exporting a VM does not change the SID etc. since the VM is powered off before the export. Everything is included in the export, so I can’t see how it should create USN rollback etc.
I have never had issues with this - at all, with this procedure.

But if you could not export/import Virtual Domain Controllers, how could you actually move a Virtual Domain Controller then?  You can even run a P2V on DC, as long as it is an offline conversion. The  ‘Key word’ in both terms: don’t start both machines (the source and the ‘new’ VM).


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