Subnet LAN?

[nimblegimble]

Hi guys,

At work we have approx 30 PCs, 14 in a publicly accessible area and the rest in staff offices across the first floor. The public machines are currently not a part of our domain due to paranoia on the part of my predecessor.

I was wondering though if there are any real concerns regarding joining the public PCs to the organisations 2000 domain or should I install a new network adapter in the server and physically seperate the segments?

I'm a bit hazy on the whole deely and would appreciate any advice folks can offer!

Many thanks,

Nimble.

[Sinizter]

If they can work without being in the domain and they are publicly accessible, why risk getting them into the domain ?

[Moby-Dick]

If they can work without being in the domain and they are publicly accessible, why risk getting them into the domain ?

on the contrary you'd have more control over them if they were in a domain , but a heavily restricted OU.

the temptation to house them on a seperate network segment would add an extra layer to things.

What do you want to achieve ?

[nimblegimble]

excactly what you opened with Moby - centralised control and the ability to add and control regular stuff like access to network drives, apply policies etc.

[chrisg22]

on the contrary you'd have more control over them if they were in a domain , but a heavily restricted OU.

the temptation to house them on a seperate network segment would add an extra layer to things.

What do you want to achieve ?

Best bet would be a heavy restricted OU like Moby suggested, what are the public machines actually used for?

[nimblegimble]

OU? Sorry for my noobishness! The PCs are used for Internet Access, playing the odd game of Day of Defeat and Microsoft Office.

[Moby-Dick]

OU = Organisational Unit. ( Container within Active Directory that you can apply its own subset of policies to. )

[nimblegimble]

Woo-hoo, thanks for that

[d3fiant]

by the sounds of it I would invest in some time from someone familiar with active directory, OUs and GPO, it will most likely be cheaper than fixing damage to ur exisitng AD afterwards and lessen the risk of an associated outage, sure someone here lives near u

[nimblegimble]

Hmm, just had a look in my books and it doesn't seem to be a difficult task. ;-)

[d3fiant]

well good luck fella, hope it goes without incident, if it doesnt, u know where to come for advice

[nimblegimble]

lol, only joking - I filled my pants and went over the road to seek advice

Thanks for all the help, I'm convinced now that I need to do this as having 14 machines all operating on a pooey p2p network is becoming a nightmare...