Establishing a Design Team

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

The Active Directory design team is responsible for gathering all of the information needed to make decisions about the Active Directory logical structure design. The responsibilities of the design team include:

  • Determining how many forests and domains are required and what the relationships are between the forests and domains.

  • Working with data owners to ensure that the design meets their security and administrative requirements.

  • Working with the current network administrators to ensure that the current network infrastructure supports the design and the design will not adversely affect existing applications deployed on the network.

  • Working with representatives of the security group of the organization to ensure that the design meets established security policies.

  • Designing OU structures that permit appropriate levels of protection and the proper delegation of authority to the data owners.

  • Working with the deployment team to test the design in a lab environment to ensure that it functions as planned, and modifying the design as needed to address any problems that occur.

  • Creating a site topology design that meets the replication requirements of the forest while preventing overload of available bandwidth. For more in formation about designing the site topology, see "Designing the Site Topology" in this book

  • Working with the deployment team to ensure that the design is implemented correctly.

The design team includes the following members:

  • Potential forest owners

  • Project architect

  • Project manager

  • Individuals who are responsible for establishing and maintaining security policies on the network

During the logical structure design process, the design team identifies the other owners. These individuals must start participating in the design process as soon as they are identified.

After the deployment project is handed off to the deployment team, the design team is responsible for overseeing the deployment process to ensure that the design is implemented correctly. The design team also makes changes to the design based on feedback from testing.