What are the consequences of giving an AD domain differing NetBIOS and DNS names?
- by Newt
In the past, when creating AD domains, I've used the common convention of using a sub-domain of the company's publicly registered domain name, e.g "corp.mycompany.com" or "int.mycompany.com". I've always accepted the default NetBIOS name when running DCPromo, for fear that creating a NetBIOS name that differs from the sub-domain may cause complications.
I've recently been doing a bit of research on the consequences of providing an alternate NetBIOS name. The main reasons behind this are:
The NetBIOS name isn't particularly descriptive or unique to the company
Apparently generic NetBIOS names such as "CORP" or "INT" can cause issues when merging IT systems (although I've not had experience with this myself)
Providing something "before the slash" that means more to users (less important)
In looking at the possible downsides, the only one I can come up with is the disjointed namespace issue when configuring Exchange.
Can anybody with more experience than I elaborate on my findings at all?
Many thanks
