I'm in the final steps of decommissioning my client's old Server 2012 Essentials after migrating to Server 2016 with Essentials Role installed. I'd like to keep the old server as a backup domain controller, to provide backup of Active Directory.
The old server was switched to Server 2012 Standard with Essentials Role installed so we could exceed the original 25 licence limits. So, it's essentially Server 2012 with Essentials Role that can be uninstalled.
Can you give me some guidance on the steps to accomplish this? Should I follow the migration steps through to the end, including removing from Domain and DNS cleanup and THEN reprovision it as a secondary domain controller? And, do you have a guide or can you point me to some steps to set it up as a secondary domain controller?
Many thanks!
--Art
Normally you would uninstall the Essentials Experience role and run the cleanup wizard as described in the guide at chapter 22 of How to migrate Windows Server 2012 R2 (Essentials) to Windows Server 2016 (Essentials). After that, you will have a 'normal' DC that can be your second DC in the network. No need to demote or do anything else.
Though the above method will work I prefer to complete the migration as described in the guide and decommission the old server and wipe it. After that install, a clean 2012 Standard, join it to the domain and promote it to a DC. That way you have a perfectly clean server without leftovers. Chapter 6 shows you how to add a replica DC to your domain.
Should I follow the steps in Chapter 21 Uninstall Active Directory Certificate Services or are these services needed for this to be a replica DC?
Thanks, as always, for your guidance.
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