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Active Directory Health
Check
Active Directory is the
true heart of Windows 200x domains. Its proper
functioning is critical to the network and the
many applications relying on it. It manages the
identities and brokers the relationships between
distributed resources so that they can work
together. Further, a directory service is a
place to store information about corporate and
organizational assets such as applications,
files, printers and users. When Active Directory
is underperforming or compromised, access to all
associated resources is compromised as well.
As the networking environment changes,
organizations that have implemented Microsoft
Windows Active Directory need to make sure that
Active Directory is configured and operating
properly. Even an Active Directory that is
properly installed can easily have components
fail or stop working, which causes problems with
the Windows networking environment. Companies
that have multiple address books and varying
levels of features and functionality in
different systems find this engagement
particularly useful. With a properly configured
Active Directory, it’s easier to enact policy
across the corporation.
Experts recommend that an organization should
run an Active Directory Health Check at least
every quarter, with some very large enterprises
that have made it a best practice to run subsets
of the Active Directory Health Check daily. As
collaborative environments mature and change,
Active Directory must be properly maintained and
groomed to support these changes. For instance,
an environment can see changes within some of
the following areas:
- Rapid increases
in size or activity of user community
- Increased
integration with external systems
- Increased mobile
or remote users
- Dramatic
increases in storage requirements that lead
to strains on archiving and backup systems
TriCon's Active
Discovery is designed to evaluate the overall
status of an Active Directory environment. This
process is intended to determine where problems
may exist that could negatively impact the
performance or capabilities of the environment.
Active Discovery examines the current Microsoft
directory service environment, detects any
deficiencies or problems and provides
appropriate recommendations. Active Discovery
covers the following areas:
- Service pack
and hot fix status
Assess currently installed service packs,
patches and hot fixes to determine if there
are any deficiencies.
- Active
Directory replication status
Are AD objects replicating correctly? Assess
Active Directory replication and any related
issues.
- DNS status
Examine aspects of DNS environment (DDNS
registrations, zone transfers, etc.) to
determine if there are any issues relating
to DNS.
- Site topology
Assess site topology to determine if it
matches physical topology for efficient AD
replications and logins.
- Global
Catalog distribution
Are Global Catalogs located where they
should be in the network? Are there enough
GCs, yet not too many that they create
inefficiencies? Assess and determine if
Global Catalog distribution is optimal for
environment.
- Schema health
Assess AD schema and determine if there are
any inconsistencies within the schema.
- FSMO role
distribution
Determine if FSMO roles are properly
distributed in the AD environment.
- Backup and
recovery procedures
Assess if client is backing up AD properly,
and if they have appropriate AD recovery
procedures in place.
- Fault
tolerance / High availability capacity
Assess the environment for AD fault
tolerance and high availability.
A healthy Active
Directory ensures a strong user experience,
from access to critical systems to quicker
logon time, more reliable resource usage and
decreased help desk support issues.
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