Child domain or Forest with two-way trust

[Gracious]

We are going to install a new server in our office and will be installing SBS 2008 on it. We are currently running SBS 2003 server in our office. I also would like to connect these servers to let them communicate with each other. I want all the users to access the server remotely so that there is not much replication over vpn. So this was the reason for setting up two servers for the office. For this I think two way trust would be better option instead of parent child relationship. So I need your suggestions as in is this proper setup for our office? Can I move further?

[Big Fish]

Every domain trusts within a Windows forest are two-way transitive trusts. In two-way trusts, both domains in the relationship trust each other. You can manually create two-way trusts between Windows domains located at different areas of the same domain tree. This cross-linked trust relations can be used to shorten the trust path in large and complex domain trees or forests.

[HiSpeed]

I am sorry to say this but SBS domain could not have trust relation or a parent-child setup. For this you must have Windows 2003 domain setup. Simply upgrade your server to Windows 2003 domain and then you can utilize two-way trust.

1. Obtain "Windows Small Business Server 2003 Transition Pack" and follow "Windows Small Business Server 2003 Transition Pack". To migrate from SBS 2003 to Windows 2003 R2 Domain, you may need to upgrade the schema to R2.
2. For instruction, refer: http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsServ...ensingfaq.mspx

[Snake08]

Are you are planning for upgrading from sbs 2003 to standard 2008? You can install Windows Server 2008 as a new domain but then you will require ADMT 3.1 to migrate data from SBS 2003 to Windows Server 2008. You can even connect Windows server 2008 to the existing SBS 2003 domain:

1. Backup SBS 2003.
2. Connect new Windows Server 2008 to SBS domain:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l...8WS.10%29.aspx
3. Setup the server to be a DC and host DNS. Move the FSMO roles to the new DC.
4. Move Exchange server to new server.
5. Move SharePoint server to new server.
6. Once you are sure that the new Windows Server 2008 DC and Exchange server are working, you can then demote the SBS 2003.

[Lemog]

You can link two different forests to create a two-way transitive trust relationship in Windows Server 2003 but not in SBS 2003. A two-way forest trust helps you to form a transitive trust relationship among each domain with in the forests. However make a note of it that forest trusts can only be created between two Windows Server 2003 forests and could not be extended to any third forest.