Virtualising a Physical DHCP Server to work off site?!

[pauldicker]

Hi Guys,

I have been asked to Virtualize a File Server, which distributes DHCP to a remote site on our network...

I am trying to find out the feasibility of this. Right now our Head Office has 6 ESX hosts, which hosts our VMWare environment.

We have another office, around 10 miles away which doesn't have any servers/hardware on site apart from the existing fileserver I am being asked to Virtualize. So what I am asking, can I create a File Server with DHCP, or just a domain controller on a VM, which will work on a remote site? My thinking is NO, as you'd need some physical device to connect to the distribution switch...

Any ideas/recommendations will be most welcome

[parmarr]

Microsoft recommends that it's better to put each server role on a member server in the domain. But, you can run DHCP server in the domain controller. If you are concern about Microsoft Licensing, you can deploy two VMs on the remote site. One is a DHCP Server (if needed on a Domain Controller) and another VM with a Linux Guest for a File Server.

[schepp]

Hi Paul,

yes you can virtualize the DHCP server and let it run at another site.

You need to configure the new IP of the DHCP-Server-vm as "DHCP Helper Adress" in the distribution switch. Your switch will then forward the DHCP-Requests from your clients to the dhcp server.

Tim