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Migrating Active Directory Users and Merging Domains

Imagine you are part of a company. That company is being bought out by a larger company. To ease feelings, new email accounts are created at the larger company (ie This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ). The computers remain on the domain of the smaller company (ie @branch.tld).

Now comes a point in time where the larger company wants to join the domains together. What are the options? How do you handle this situation?

Very good questions.

OPTION-1: 1 Forest & 2 Domains

A forest is a group of domains. It is possible to keep the domains separate but still have the same forest. @hq.tld and @branch.tld will live happily together and have a trust-relationship.

Two users would still exist. For example, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it would still exist which is confusing for people.

OPTION-2: Parent-Child Domain

The parent domain is hq.tld. It is possible to have a child domain such as branch.hq.com (or is you prefer, us.company.tld).

Two users would still exist. For example, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it would still exist which is confusing for people.

OPTION-3: Flat & Import

This consolidates everything down. It gets rid of messiness and flattens the company to 1 domain of hq.tld.

Only one user exist per person and this makes sense for people.

 How To Flatten Domain and Import Users