Getting ready

Before enabling or disabling domain controllers as global catalog servers, the placement rules should be considered.

Global catalogs are of importance in environments with multiple domains. Except for Active Directory environments, in which the Active Directory Recycle Bin is enabled, the placement of global catalogs should be considered in close relation to the domain controller holding the Infrastructure Master FSMO role.

In environments where we consider the placement of global catalogs, either:

• All domain controllers should be configured to be global catalogs.
• The Infrastructure Master FSMO role should be hosted on a domain controller that is not configured as a global catalog.

In environments with Microsoft Exchange Server, sufficient global catalog servers should be configured to handle the Exchange Server address book lookups, both in the domain where the Exchange Organization lives, and in the domain where user accounts reside that access the services of the Exchange Server implementation.

To manage global catalogs, you'll need to be signed in with an account that is a member of the Domain Admins group.