Running Exchange 2007/2010 and AD 2003. One domain/forest. We need to change some hardware on our PDC Emulator this weekend. The server will be down for about 30mins. What is the best course of action, to move the role to another server or just take the hit and leave it off? Secondly, what effect does a down PDC Emulator have on the other DC's in the domain? Finally, the only application we need running over the weekend is email (Exchange and Blackberry). Will have the PDC offline have an effect on Exchange? Is it worth restarting anything once the PDC is up again (e.g. AD Topology service)?

Just move the role to another server; it's not a big deal. The PDC Emulator role does a number of things, and I'll leave it up to you to find and read the documentation on that, but a big one of them is that it is responsible for password changes. If you don't have a PDC Emulator role, users won't be able to change their domain passwords.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

OK, will move the role to another server. I did read a lot on what the PDC does in relation to 'normal' AD events (e.g password changes as you mention), but I can't see much in terms of how it is related to Exchange (if it actually does anything special)?

If you move as mentioned above you should be OK. See extract "Directory Service Access (DSAccess) is an internal component in Exchange 2010 Server, in Exchange Server 2007, in Exchange Server 2003, and in Exchange Server 2000 that controls how all Exchange Server components access Active Directory. The primary function of DSAccess is to maintain information about various directory-related events and operations. For example, DSAccess discovers the Active Directory topology and detects if domain controllers and global catalog servers are available and responding to queries."Sukh

There's no reason not to move all FSMO roles to another server when doing maintenance. It's easy to do and shouldn't have any ill side effects. So just do it. I'm not aware that Exchange looks to the PDC emulator for anything special.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

On Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:11:59 +0000, Ed Crowley [MVP] wrote: > > >There's no reason not to move all FSMO roles to another server when doing maintenance. It's easy to do and shouldn't have any ill side effects. So just do it. > >I'm not aware that Exchange looks to the PDC emulator for anything special. As a matter of fact, Exchange tries to *avoid* using the DC holding that FSMO role, although if you run the ExBPA while the PDC isn't available you'll get warnings. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

Just move the role to another server; it's not a big deal. The PDC Emulator role does a number of things, and I'll leave it up to you to find and read the documentation on that, but a big one of them is that it is responsible for password changes. If you don't have a PDC Emulator role, users won't be able to change their domain passwords.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

On Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:11:59 +0000, Ed Crowley [MVP] wrote: > > >There's no reason not to move all FSMO roles to another server when doing maintenance. It's easy to do and shouldn't have any ill side effects. So just do it. > >I'm not aware that Exchange looks to the PDC emulator for anything special. As a matter of fact, Exchange tries to *avoid* using the DC holding that FSMO role, although if you run the ExBPA while the PDC isn't available you'll get warnings. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP This says PDC is used by default - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998226(EXCHG.80).aspxSukh

On Sun, 18 Dec 2011 11:33:32 +0000, Sukh828 wrote: >This says PDC is used by default - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998226(EXCHG.80).aspx >Sukh As a best practice, the PDC is excluded from use. If best practices are ignored then the PDC is treated no differently to any other DC. "If the Analyzer finds that the domain controller acting as PDC emulator has not been manually excluded from the list of domain controllers available for use by Exchange Server, the Analyzer displays a best practice recommendation." --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

On Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:11:59 +0000, Ed Crowley [MVP] wrote: > > >There's no reason not to move all FSMO roles to another server when doing maintenance. It's easy to do and shouldn't have any ill side effects. So just do it. > >I'm not aware that Exchange looks to the PDC emulator for anything special. As a matter of fact, Exchange tries to *avoid* using the DC holding that FSMO role, although if you run the ExBPA while the PDC isn't available you'll get warnings. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP This says PDC is used by default - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998226(EXCHG.80).aspxSukh

On Sun, 18 Dec 2011 11:33:32 +0000, Sukh828 wrote: >This says PDC is used by default - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998226(EXCHG.80).aspx >Sukh As a best practice, the PDC is excluded from use. If best practices are ignored then the PDC is treated no differently to any other DC. "If the Analyzer finds that the domain controller acting as PDC emulator has not been manually excluded from the list of domain controllers available for use by Exchange Server, the Analyzer displays a best practice recommendation." --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP