Additional Implementation Plan Components

Along with the implementation of DCs, which make up the domains and sites in the Active Directory design, there are other components to an Active Directory implementation plan. Remember, the implementation plan must contain the processes necessary to implement the Active Directory design. Therefore, if there is an aspect to the Active Directory design that is not addressed in the implementation plan, the implementation plan is not complete.

Here are some additional sections that might be appropriate for your implementation plan.

Defining Rollback Plan

Don't consider a rollback plan pessimistic, rather consider it prudent. Although you go through the process of testing hardware, designs, and implementation tasks in the lab and then you go to the effort of running a pilot to confirm your procedures and prepare for implementation, there is always the chance your deployment will not go as planned. There could be any number of reasons you might want to rollback during a migration. What's important is that you have the ability to rollback if necessary. A rollback plan gives you that ability.

Take some time to consider what would happen during each phase of the implementation if you were to have to rollback. In some cases, all that would be lost is pride and man-hours. In other cases, it would be possible to lose data or cause an extended service outage.

Components of the rollback plan can be built into the implementation strategy. For example, if you are upgrading Windows NT 4.0 domains, it might be prudent to take a BDC from each domain off the network before the domain is upgraded. This way, if the upgrade goes south and the existing BDCs are affected, you will have the offline BDC to promote to a Primary Domain Controller (PDC) as part of a rollback plan.

Defining an Implementation Schedule

Scheduling the implementation project can be a difficult task. Some of the issues around scheduling your implementation project include the following:

• Determining task dependencies

• Placing tasks in order of predecessors to dependencies

• Calculating the number of business days from when the implementation begins to the project deadline, and subtracting at least one week

• Calculating the number of man-days required to accomplish the ordered tasks, and taking into account project milestones and possible simultaneous tasks

• Calculating the number of resources necessary to produce the necessary number of man-days in the number of business days until the deadline

• Building in slack time between phases for such things as travel time, unforeseen delays, vacations, sick time, holidays, hardware lead times, and so on

This is basic project management. Simplified, yes, but you should get the picture. In more complex implementations, utilizing the skills of a professional project manager can help the project run smoothly.

Defining Milestones

How you define milestones is dependent on your philosophy of project management. Some milestones are established between phases, to measure progress and to make adjustments as necessary. Other milestones are major dependencies during the implementation. Milestones might not be based on tasks but on geography. For example, if your enterprise spans multiple countries or continents, milestones might be established that break up the DC rollout phase by country.

Defining Dependencies

Dependencies are simply those tasks that must be performed before one another. In a project such as this, there are several dependencies based on the premise that a system is being built. As you learn more about Active Directory and test it in the lab, you begin to see the order in which things must be done to build your Active Directory.

Defining the Resources Required to Meet the Schedule

If you have limited resources , then the number of business days necessary to complete the project might have to expand. If you have unlimited resources, there are still dependencies and milestones that cause the project to extend over some period of time, which is in relation to the complexity of your environment.