I'm just looking for a few opinions on a particular setup. windows 2k3 server with 15 clients connected. dhcp is required who is best suited to act as the dhcp server? the win2k3 box or another piece of hardware, such as some cisco equipment? i've heard running dhcp on windows server in any environment is never a good idea for security reasons, etc. could somebody shed some light onto this for me? thanks -Ron M.

Hello Ron, It is possible to run DHCP Services on a Windows server with security in mind. Think about these things when considering going with a hardware based DHCP solution: If you go with an appliance, it can depend on how much you control you have over the configuration of DHCP. 1) For instance, if have Active Directory, you will need to set the DNS options in DHCP to point to your internal DNS servers that host the AD zone. Alot of these routers/firewalls do not have the custom capability. 2) Your business may require to have DHCP update DNS records on behalf of the clients. Again, can the DHCP service on the firewall work with Dynamic DNS? 3) One DHCP server? Having at least two with scopes split 50/50 provides redundancy and high availability in DHCP services. Aside from these concerns, you should be good with moving forward keeping DHCP Services on the dedicated appliance if needed. I personally like running DHCP on the Windows Server since it tightly integrates with DNS. Visit: anITKB.com, an IT Knowledge Base.

You can run DHCP on windows 2003 servers without any security issues. Also, if you are using AD, my recommendation is to use Windows DHCP. You can read more about DHCP on the following link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/network/bb643151.aspx Santhosh Sivarajan | MCTS, MCSE (W2K3/W2K/NT4), MCSA (W2K3/W2K/MSG), CCNA, Network+ Houston, TX http://blogs.sivarajan.com/ http://publications.sivarajan.com/ This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Hi Ron, You can read this document to get more information about DHCP for Windows Server 2003: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for Windows Server 2003 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb726932.aspx