I'm working for a client who is extremely slow to upgrade and doesn't spend much money. As a result, I'm trying to keep their ancient Windows Server 2008 machines going, despite seriously needing to upgrade.

For the time being, they want to replace their very old gateway device with something that can support the upgraded internet connection they're looking to get. The existing device is 100Mbps for WAN and LAN so I'm looking to replace it with gigabit everything for the new 200Mbps connection.

I'm fond of Unifi devices and would love to use a UDM Pro for this, and I'm wondering if it's crazy to cede control of DHCP to the UDM instead of the Server. The DHCP UI for Windows Server is awful. I hate it. I'd love to use the much friendlier Unifi interface instead. Would this be a bad idea?

How many devices on the LAN? Do you need a lot of control and management?

If the devices are reasonably few and you don't expect DHCP or DNS to need configuration changes in the near future, I'd leave those things up to the router/gateway device, if it's a reliable one.

It's a few dozen desktops and a smattering of printers. Then a couple Unifi APs already online.

To be clear, DHCP is on the Windows Server at the moment.

If they are using the Windows Server as a domain controller changing the DHCP server and/or DNS server might cause issues with connecting to the domain. If they are running Server 2008 R2 and don't have the ESU updates. I would recommend getting https://0patch.com/ with a subscription.

Ah. If that's been reliable then I wouldn't change it. If it ain't broke...

I'm helping a friend out currently with some networking stuff in his studio, and I settled on a Dream Machine Pro instead of a Mikrotik based simply on the fact that I can't support him full time and there's no way he'd get his head around the Mikrotik.

So far, my experience of the DHCP server built in to the Unifi is that it sucks, big time. Bare minimum functionality, it seems. I'd probably stick with Windows (can't believe I'm saying that!).

Wasn't 2008 server put out to pasture?

-jk

It absolutely was. Please tell my client that

We still have a server on 2008

Hopefully will be retired in December