Which Dell desktops are you using, OP? I have been 99% DELL my whole career. I remember some capacitor problems on Optiplex mobos like over 10 years ago. At my current place, I have had Optiplex 380, 390, 3020 and now 7040 SFF. I have only had like 2 or 3 in 5+ years have any issue within 4 years of their in-service date.

As far as laptops go, I am still a dedicated Lenovo ThinkPad T and X series fan. Most of the problems are software related. Only occasionally do these not last a full 3 years for my remote sales personnel, who travel domestically and internationally all the time. Once they hit that mark, they are in line for an upgrade and the decent units that still have life left in them are re-purposed in-house for a variety of low-level workloads.

@scottalanmiller Using VMware/ESXi 6

Also, what is the reasoning behind doing away with ifconfig in favor of ip addr?

Not a big deal but for some reason instead of eth0, which is what I am used to, my NIC is showing as eno16777984. Why would that be?

I am enjoying filling the gaps of my knowledge of Linux. Thanks!

@scottalanmiller I was planning on it

@scottalanmiller good info. Seems pretty straight forward. Since this is a DC, I would only be concerned if RS AND my on-site infrastructure and backups AND off-site backups some how got destroyed.

I was also wondering for future projects in a general sense.

@scottalanmiller I should check out rackspace. Although, I am using S3 and glacier for some off-site backup and archiving.

Speaking of which, I am using VMware and Veeam for all my virtual machines. What would I use to backup the hosted DC?

OK, so VPN, check.

Is SAM endorsing Azure for hosting an ADDC VM?

Can you log in to your spam filter/log and search for mail coming from that person who claims they are sending email to the correct address?

In my Barracuda SVF 300 I can see all the messages coming in that are to non-existent email addresses. In fact, I have had this problem before and had to show a department manager that they were sending it to a person who got married and since changed their last name and, of course, the email address had to be updated.

@scottalanmiller very interesting. I completely agree that it makes the most sense to have the gateway. I am just surprised that they wouldn't include it in the lower tier business plans.

@scottalanmiller said:

@wrx7m said:

@Dashrender Thanks, I went enterprise with the gateway. And last time I checked you still needed to have the connection software installed on all DCs in your domain for the DNS to work properly even with the gateway option.

That's new since any of us used it.

Which part is new; the gateway or the DC requirement?

@scottalanmiller you never cease to amaze me

Trialing Pertino was one of those things where it made me recognize that the network/systems I had inherited from a succession of admins that didn't have the knowledge, budget or both, really needed to be reworked, logically. I made some minor upgrades in network equipment and major modifications in terms of wireless, implementing separate VLANs with ACLs for respective SSIDs, RADIUS authentication and logging, etc.

I was not working full tilt on just the Pertino stuff. I am the lone admin here and we are a company with about 88 employees. I have made great strides in trying to keep things moving and staying up with the best methods for all facets of IT and implement what is necessary to ensure integrity and stability of the systems with as little interruption to service as possible. I went from 6 physical servers that were 9-10 years old and out of warranty, to being 85% virtualized on 4-hour onsite warrantied hardware, which puts me in a much better position to be more flexible in terms of where services are provided from. I only have 3 physical servers. 1 older file/print server, an RDG/RDS server and an Exchange server. I am planing on virtualizing the first two and migrating to hosted Exchange within the next year to year and a half.

@Dashrender It is expensive. Much more than I thought, actually. You have to get the Enterprise 100 or better for the gateway option. I have been dealing with their team off and on for over a year and provided feedback on trial usage and that is when they told me that they were implementing smartzones and the gateway. I had been waiting and did a redesign of my network and now I am finally ready to use it. Even though the sales guy has gone to another company, Todd Krautkremer (active on SW) put me in touch with another sales guy and after getting floored and disappointed by the initial price they worked with me some more and gave me an incredible deal. Technically, I am going to still trial the gateway et al, but it would have to have some serious problems for me to pass it up.

@Dashrender Thanks, I went enterprise with the gateway. And last time I checked you still needed to have the connection software installed on all DCs in your domain for the DNS to work properly even with the gateway option.

I just got Pertino approved not 5 minutes ago, so I would be using that.

I can't for the life of me find a thread that someone else started either here or on SpiceWorks that may or may not have gotten off topic where several reply posts mentioned having an additional ADDC off site for redundancy/availability.

Being that I can't seem to work my search magic today, I would like to know what the best practices and considerations would be in implementing an ADDC "in the cloud". Perhaps this is better suited as its own thread, anyway.

Thanks for the help.

@dafyre I agree with this. I have had to do this before. Even if it looks correct in the autocomplete, the smtp address associated with it could be incorrect.