In that case a 10,000 foot view:
- Nothing is stopping you from doing your testing once the new domain is installed.
- If there will be a trust between the old and new domains, remember that Express only supports 2-way trusts. The commercial version supports one-way trusts.
- Identity Namespace: Note that this is automatically genereated for you by the client (unlike the commercial version, that you have control over):
- login - > user's samaccountname
- group name -> group's samaccountame
- UID and GID - > uniquely generated based on the domain's SID
- GECOS -> the user's display name (or group's display name)
- Home & Shell - > based on platform settings.
What does this mean to you?
When if you don't plan to use a trust to connect the old and the new, this means that you must plan for a migration. Once you join the new domain, although the login or display names for users may be the same, since that domain will have it's unique SID, all uid/gids will change, therefore users will lose ownership of their files.
If this will be a brand-new Windows 2016 AD, make sure you are using the latest and greatest version of adclient to enjoy benefits.