I've been researching toward a 'greenfield' vSphere setup.
Very modest to start -- domain controllers, several app servers, vCenter appliance and server, probably 9-10 VMs total.
The organization I'm working on this for, people think it can/should be done upon one vSphere host with a lot of memory and internal storage, I will make another post inquiring about this, so please don't comment about this part.
It will be a vSphere Essentials Plus installation with both vCenter Appliance and Server installed.
When I first started thinking about the servers, I initially thought one physical Windows domain controller and one virtual Windows domain controller.
This is easier now with Windows Server 2012 R2 Update 1.
I planned for the physical server to be the authoritative NTP server, and both servers would do AD, DNS, and split DHCP.
However, I began thinking, 'What are the pros and cons of having two virtual DCs versus one physical DC and one virtual DC??'
This is important to ask since initially there may only be one vSphere host...issues of HA, maintenance mode, SPOF, etc. which I will investigate in another forum thread.
I would appreciate comments and advice from people with experience in this realm.
Thank you, Tom