How long can a FSMO role holder be offline

[eaglesix]

I have a 2003 server network running AD with one NT BDC still
running. I have two sites. Recently i had a power supply go on a DC
that held the PDC emulator role. I have read this role holder can't
be offline for long without problems. My question is if this happens
over a weekend and i have no activity on the network (ie: all machines
are powered off) with the exception of my servers would anything
change that could corrupt the AD on the other DCs?

Would powering off the NT BDC and other DCs until the part arrived
prevent mis-communications between the DCs during the outage? I have
a four hour M-F support contract for parts so if it happened during
the work week we should be okay. My concern is if a part fails on a
Friday night and i don't get a replacement until Monday.

[Florian Frommherz [MVP]]

Howdie!

eaglesix wrote:
> I have a 2003 server network running AD with one NT BDC still
> running. I have two sites. Recently i had a power supply go on a DC
> that held the PDC emulator role. I have read this role holder can't
> be offline for long without problems. My question is if this happens
> over a weekend and i have no activity on the network (ie: all machines
> are powered off) with the exception of my servers would anything
> change that could corrupt the AD on the other DCs?

No, no corruption of AD. It is a client thing. If the PDC is down,
they'll be issues with clients, time sync won't be available and other
mgmt related features of AD won't work.

> Would powering off the NT BDC and other DCs until the part arrived
> prevent mis-communications between the DCs during the outage? I have
> a four hour M-F support contract for parts so if it happened during
> the work week we should be okay. My concern is if a part fails on a
> Friday night and i don't get a replacement until Monday.

The DCs should be fine working without the PDC for quite a while. I've
tried to break that down in the following article:
http://www.frickelsoft.net/blog/?p=95 -- the server should really be
fine and not dependend on the PDC role itself -- it is primarily the
clients you should worry about.

Cheers,
Florian