So before when we'd do this test using Server 2008 domain controllers we didn't run into any issues other than having to do the registry tweak as detailed in this kb article.https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2001093 In short what we do is bring up a series of VM's in an isolated environment at our DR site. The vm's are connected to a vswitch that is not connected
to any of the rest of our branches. We then are to power up the Domain Controllers (1 FSMO role holder and the other is a non role holding DC). Then once those are up and running we bring up the exchange, file server and sql servers and do some testing to
ensure the replicated data is usable. Then power down everything and decommission the volume snapshot that was used for the test.
Now with Server 2012, this is what we end up with. Neither domain controller will power on correctly because it can't see the rest of the network. Which in a DR situation could be a possibility (bring the servers at the DR site up as the telecom's are restoring
connectivity). As far as I can tell the production AD environment is healthy. So is this just something that we have to deal with in the Server 2012 environment? Is it just not as resilient as the 2008 version?
Everything in production appears to replicating normal and I'm getting good responses from dcdiag, repadmin /replsummary. Here's some of the error's we're seeing in the DR environment.
When attempting to open Active Directory Users and Computers.
And on the Non-FSMO role holder DC
And then here is what we were seeing from the FSMO holder.