AD User Profiles

[Metalboz]

Can you have a copy of a user profile on a second server within the same AD domain?

The user profiles are reset at each log-on and only used for access to a centralised program. I just want to know if i can copy the user profile over to another SAN/Site within the network and a user be able to log-on via a different WAN connection if the first WAN connection is down. The 2 sites are connected by another WAN and are mirrored as a failover site.

 

[yassarikhan786]

I don't know what you mean exactly. Is the second server a domain controller? Afaik if the second server is on the AD domain you can log on using any profile in the Active Directory.

 

[Rastalovich]

Whilst not totally understanding what you're hoping to do.

First thing you have to think of is there is a difference between a user profile and a user login, they're two different things, although related.

It's wholly possible to have 1 login, in AD, have multiple profiles.

You can have 1 AD user login have profiles for a number of different (or same I guess) OS based clients on the network. Like different versions of windows/osx/linux etc.. You have to do this for Win7 and XP for example as the profile structures are different.

It would be possible, in theory, to have a login script check where you are logging in and use the local site to access the profile of which is duplicated on 2 servers. It would probably depend on the scale of how you wanted to do it, but you would need each server sync'ing with each other, just the profile info. Normally companies would have 1 copy of the profile and hopefully it would be the local site.

Syncing sounds logical, but I just don't know what barriers your network may or may not have to prevent it.

 

[Metalboz]

I know it isn't recommended but i think i will go with using DFS and point AD to the link. The user accounts are reset after logging out and is only used to access a shared resource. This means there wont be much replication over the network as the home and profile folders should stay relatively small.

It is just a second mirrored site that remote users may be able to log in to if site A is unavailable. I dont want to create secondary logins for each user for each site, that is not user friendly. At least DFS can choose the correct site and SAN according to cost then.