Determining Domain Migration Strategies

Managing the Transition to the Windows 2000 Forest

As part of your domain upgrade plan, you must carefully manage the transition to the Windows 2000 forest you have designed. Be sure to keep the following in mind:

Define the forest namespace properly. If not, you will need to restructure the forest to correct the namespace.
Create the root domain of the forest carefully. After the root domain is created, it cannot be changed.
Create child domains carefully. If you join a child domain to the wrong part of the forest, you will have to perform a restructure that was not part of your plan.
Set up policies, such as those concerning the use of groups and Access Control Lists (ACLs), that do not obstruct your future plans.

For more information about designing your Windows 2000 forest, see "Designing the Active Directory Structure" in this book.