Performance Turning AD

Question

With a business of 100 employees and 300 devices throughout 5 sites, would one physical server be sufficient? Or would a cloud server be okay? I don't have any information about what the business is or how much data they consume in a day, week, or month.

Could I do one Domain Controller in Active Directory and then have one forest dedicated for each site, 5 forests total, with their own group policies in each forest?

Is that how it works? I am a first year Network Administration student, and I fear I really need clarification on how it all works. I really need a simple explanation.

Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

Typically a simplistic setup would be a domain controller at each site with all in a single domain with site to site vpn connections.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-ds/plan/designing-the-site-topology

--please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

Answer 2

Hi @RBstudent

Also have a look at these two articles which will provide some details on AD design principles

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-ds/plan/ad-ds-design-and-planning

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/52587.active-directory-design-considerations-and-best-practices.aspx

Gary.