Choose Existing or New Active Directory Forest

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Two options are available for your configuration of Active Directory Domain Services: connect to an existing domain, or set up a new root domain in a new forest.

Join to an existing domain

If you are joining the servers that are running Windows EBS to an existing domain, the Management Server and the Messaging Server join your existing domain as domain controllers. To complete this domain join, use an account with enterprise administrator privileges to log on to your existing Active Directory domain. You also use this account to join your Security Server to the domain.

Create a new Active Directory forest

If you choose this option, your Management Server and Messaging Server become domain controllers in the root domain of a new Active Directory forest. You might select this option if you are not currently running Active Directory Domain Services in your environment. For this option, you need to supply a new domain name.

A NetBIOS name is automatically generated and displayed in the wizard; you can change it if you desire.

Important

After you name an Active Directory domain, it can be difficult to change the name later. Consider this when naming your domain, for example, if your company is merging with another company, it may be inadvisable to use a domain name that will change after the merger.

Note

You can use the same top-level domain (for example, .com) for your Active Directory domain that you use for an external URL. For example, if you have the Web site "Adventure-works.com," you can use that domain name in your Active Directory domain name. If you intend to publish Windows® SharePoint® Services sites, this can facilitate access to them. However, as a best practice, you should name the Active Directory domain as a subdomain of the external domain (for example, corp.Adventure-works.com), or use a different domain suffix or name. For more information, see the Microsoft Web site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=132709).

Note

If you do not name your Active Directory domain as a subdomain of your external domain, it is recommended that you use the suffix .internal, rather than the frequently-used .local suffix.