yes should promote it to the domain controller you cannot replicate the zones with out active directroy configured. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc779655(WS.10).aspx http://www.virmansec.com/blogs/skhairuddin

You can check this through the SOA (Start of Authority) and also you can compare the Serial Number value this should be the same figer on the borth servers and you can change the refresh interval time to replicate. in your scenario curreantly you have build on secondary server so this will be only replicating to the one way.

Hi all, I've an active directory domain, all my domain controllers are Windows Server 2003 R2. All domain controllers are also DNS server. I've deployed a new Windows 2008 R2 Server, I've activated DHCP role on it and it works well. This server IS NOT DOMAIN CONTROLLER, it is a simple MEMBER SERVER. I've activated DNS role on this new server. If I want that all my DNS zones replicate on this new server I've mandatory promote it to domain controller? Can I replicate all my zone without promoting this Windows Server 2008 R2 to domain controller?

yes should promote it to the domain controller you cannot replicate the zones with out active directroy configured. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc779655(WS.10).aspx http://www.virmansec.com/blogs/skhairuddin

Hi Syed, I can create a secondary zone on the Windows 2008 R2 server machine and enable zone trasfers on the domain controller. In this scenario how zone replication works? On which interveal? Zone updates can be made only on the DCs?

you need a domain controller for the zone transfer as dns is tightly integrated with the Active directory and keeps all the information in the AD database http://www.virmansec.com/blogs/skhairuddin

You can check this through the SOA (Start of Authority) and also you can compare the Serial Number value this should be the same figer on the borth servers and you can change the refresh interval time to replicate. in your scenario curreantly you have build on secondary server so this will be only replicating to the one way.

Check this article. It has detail explanation of how dns works. Thanks