Chapter 3: Managing Active Directory Roles and Features

Creating domain controllers is fun but leveraging all of them is key to implementing a responsive and highly available Active Directory. Therefore, we'll focus on the differences between domain controllers in terms of Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) roles and global catalog configuration. There's a reason why the following quote, inspired by George Orwell's Animal Farm, is popular among Active Directory admins:

"All domain controllers are equal, but some domain controllers are more equal than others."

The following recipes are covered in this chapter:

• Querying FSMO role placement
• Transferring FSMO roles
• Seizing FSMO roles
• Configuring the Primary Domain Controller emulator to synchronize time with a reliable source
• Managing time synchronization for virtual domain controllers
• Managing global catalogs

Before we begin with the recipes, we will look at FSMO...