Active Directory

The Problem With AD

Active Directory is a complex technology, as anyone who has upgraded their Windows server environment will testify. Microsoft designed AD to be the fundamental hub of all shared information in a Windows 2000/3 environment. When it is working well, it works very well. But Active Directory depends upon many things to keep it healthy and has a lot of interdependencies - which means there is plenty of scope for things to go wrong.

The truth is that AD needs to be monitored closely to determine that it is performing well. Even a well designed AD will experience problems at some point. What happens if your AD design wasn’t sound in the first place, has been implemented incorrectly, or your business has changed to such an extent that your AD design is no longer appropriate?

Active Directory focused health check

At Plan-Net we have evolved our market leading infrastructure health check service to deliver a health check that is specifically focused around Microsoft Active Directory.

Plan-Net’s health check for Active Directory service delivers real business value:

  • Independent and expert review of your entire AD infrastructure
  • Evaluation not only against recognised best practice for the configuration in place, but also reviewing the overall suitability of the configuration for your business - particularly if your business has recently changed
  • Specific focus on existing Active Directory / Windows server problems that are currently impacting the business to provide quick resolution
  • Coverage of operational and monitoring procedures as well as technical configuration to ensure that one side isn’t letting the other down
  • Clear and detailed report with gradings against recognised best practice for more than 60 separate elements
  • Detailed description in business language not only of the issues found, but also recommendations for addressing them
  • Opportunity to discuss the findings face to face in order to really understand the report’s messages

What’s Covered

The Active Directory health check delves deep into your AD implementation in eight key areas:-

  • OU design, including security principals, delegation, object placement
  • Supporting network infrastructure, including OS configuration, AD, DNS, network performance, GCs, WINS inter-site links etc.
  • Key service resilience, checking directory and schema backups, restoration, incident management, AD fault tolerance
  • Security model design and implementation
  • Weaknesses and threat assessment such as patching levels, security loopholes, inappropriate directory rights
  • FSMO usage and placement, site and network design
  • Database and schema health, DC replication
  • Management. monitoring and administration tools and procedures; what’s in place, what’s appropriate, and how they work in practice

In short, the health check for Active Directory gives you a complete picture of your Active Directory environment, from a business level as well as a technical level.

What Else Should I Know?

Like our other health check services, our Active Directory health check service is designed to deliver value quickly, with a typical assignment taking no more than one week to complete. It’s also conducted on a low, fixed cost basis; our customers have told us that the value they received from SecondSight has typically paid for the cost of the health check within 3 months.

AD is a powerful, complex and often frightening entity, and there are many things that can affect its health and performance. Unfortunately a malfunctioning or wrongly configured AD can cause havoc. In one widely reported example, an AD configuration update prevented all 65,000 users in a particular organisation from logging-in, and the situation was only rectified once every single PC in the company had been rebuilt! With damage potential like that, can you afford not to be completely in-touch with the health of your Active Directory installation?

To find out more about our Active Directory services click here