FSMO Role Placment

Description:

The following is a best practice type advice regarding FSMO placements in your domain.

General Rules

• Schema Master Enterprise - Schema Master/ Domain Naming Master should be on the same server, the root server (PDC) of the multi domain.
• Domain Naming Master Enterprise - Schema Master/ Domain Naming Master should be on the same server, the root server of the multi domain.
• Primary Domain Controller Domain - PDC and RID should be same server
• RID Domain - PDC and RID should be same server
• Infrastructure Master DomainApplication partition - Doesn’t matter if all DC’s are Global Catalogs.

To Resolve:

1. For a single domain forest: Simply separate the enterprise level roles from the domain level roles (there is no work for the Infrastructure Master role in a single domain forest, so it can be on any DC whether it hosts the global catalog or not).

   • SGLDMDC01 – Schema, Domain Naming
   • SGLDMDC02 – PDC, RID, Infrastructure

2. Multi domain: So, for our forest root domain, we have two DC’s with FSMO roles (we may have many other replicas):

   • RTDMDC01 – PDC, Schema, Domain Naming
   • RTDMDC02 – RID, Infrastructure

3. Child domain: So, in our child domains, we have a single DC with FSMO roles (we may have many other replicas).

   • CHLDMDC01 – PDC, RID, Infrastructure

References:

“FSMO Roles Separation Best Practices”