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We're utilizing TFS and Hyper-V with SCVMM for our testing environments, but unfortunately we don't have any network separation right now. We had to create our own domain in order to most effectively use SCVMM deployment and TFS management without having to get domain access to the entire corporate network.

This is problematic for us for a few reasons. For one, we're spamming network discovery with our VMs (can't be disabled, it's needed for certain TFS functions). For two, we have to manually go in to each VM on creation, statically set the DNS to the TFS, join the test domain, reset to DHCP, and reboot the machine. This makes deployment a nightmare, as well as adding any additional Hyper-V hosts or build controllers.

We don't want total isolation, we still need internet access to pull files from Azure during build-deploy-test cycles, but we need to have more control over the environment. Is the easiest solution to this moving everything onto its own subnet?
The biggest issue I see with that is connecting to the TFS or any of the Hyper-V hosts for maintenance or test case access.

The second, and I'm told this is a terrible idea, is to add the test domain into the primary DNS for the network. But that would leave us with two domain discoverable domains on one network subnet.

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we're spamming network discovery with our VMs - What does that mean? Can you elaborate on that?

we have to manually go in to each VM on creation, statically set the DNS to the TFS, join the test domain, reset to DHCP, and reboot the machine. - Why are you resetting them to DHCP? You should use static ip addresses on the test machines in order to: 1. Not consume ip addresses from the production DHCP pool. 2. Better control the assignment of DNS servers to the test VM's. 3. Better manage the VM's by knowing what ip addresses you've assigned to them.

The second, and I'm told this is a terrible idea, is to add the test domain into the primary DNS for the network. But that would leave us with two domain discoverable domains on one network subnet. - What do you mean by that?

Other than a small amount of broadcast traffic, I really don't see why there would be any real issues running these on the same physical network and subnet as the production computers. There's no interaction between the two domains.

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  • Can you elaborate on that? - So when you click on "Network" in an explorer window, the list of machines that are populated. It's my understanding turning network discovery off fixes that, but prevents connections through NetBIOS or RDP without using IP. – Koala Bear Jul 29 '15 at 16:44
  • Why are you resetting them - We're not necessarily having the VMs all running at once, and want to prevent IP conflict. Right now the whole company is only on x.x.255.0 – Koala Bear Jul 29 '15 at 16:46
  • What do you mean by that? - Everything I've found on the subject of running two DCs on the same subnet is that it causes tons of issues. If that's not the case then the simplest fix would be to just add the test domain onto the primary DNS server, yes? – Koala Bear Jul 29 '15 at 16:48
  • It's my understanding turning network discovery off fixes that, but prevents connections through NetBIOS or RDP without using IP - That's not the case. Network Discovery doesn't enable or disable NetBIOS or RDP. Everything I've found on the subject of running two DCs on the same subnet is that it causes tons of issues - That's a pretty broad and vague statement. I've never heard that but I can tell you that I've worked with several networks that were shared by more than one AD domain with no issues. – joeqwerty Jul 29 '15 at 16:55
  • No offense intended but you've made your arguments based on vague and nebulous "rumors" without providing any factual evidence or examples, which leads me to believe that the source of the info that you're basing your questions on is less than reliable and less than accurate. – joeqwerty Jul 29 '15 at 16:56

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