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scooter133's avatar
scooter133
Copper Contributor
May 05, 2023

Make Print Spooler and DHCP services Redundant?

Looking to get our print Spooler and DHCP redundant/Failover. The Spooler currently Spools to about 25 Printers DHCP and the Spooler are installed on a Primary AD DC. We have About 120 users.  Servers are Windows Datacenter 2022.

 

The AD DC is one of 2 at this Location. Looking at Windows Server Failover Clustering, it looks like I can install WSFC on a AD DCs and then Add the Print Spooler to the cluster. (Yes, loosing the original \\host\share) 

 

My 2 Questions are:

1) WSFC on DCs is Supported, though Wanted real World experience. Is this fine? I dont want to have to spin up 2 more VMs to just maintain printing.  Is this a good way to do redundant Print Spooling?

 

2) DHCP has its own built in Failover as you can tie it to another DHCP server and make them function as one. Is the built in failover Better than adding DHCP as a WSFC Resource?

 

Thank you,

Scott<-

  • Alban1998's avatar
    Alban1998
    Iron Contributor
    Hello,
    1) Don't mix WSFC with DC, Active Directory has its own resiliency mechanism. It doesn't mix well at all with WSFC (not even sure it is supported). Don't mix Print Server with DC too - too much of a security risk.
    For resiliency, you could rely on VM failover if it's a virtual machine. WSFC could work but it's kinda overkill for 120 users.
    2) DHCP failover is easy to configure and reliable, and much easier to implement/manage than WSFC. Like 1), don't mix DHCP server roles with DC - put it on its own server. VM failover is also a solution (rebuilding a DHCP server take barely more time than reinstalling the OS).

    You should avoid WFSC unless you have a very specific need tbh, it's overkill for most use cases wherever built(in resiliency is available.

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