Q. My PDC is in another site and I want to minimize WAN traffic associated with PDC communication. What can I do?

A. Certain actions, such as a password change, will cause a system to try to replicate to the PDC Flexible Single-Master Operation (FSMO) as soon as the action happens. If the PDC FSMO is located at another site and you want to minimize traffic to the PDC FSMO and allow changes to replicate per your normal schedule, you can make the following change on the remote site domain controllers.

1. Start the registry editor (regedit.exe).
2. Move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters.
3. Create a DWORD value named AvoidPdcOnWan and set it to a value of 1. Click OK.
4. Reboot the DC.

Now any password changes will replicate per normal replication schedules and not immediately, reducing the WAN traffic associated with PDC communication.