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Active Directory Management: Approaches for Greater Simplicity and Consistency

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AmyKelly Petruzzella
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The rising need for flexibility and ease of integration with other systems, either on-premises or in the cloud, are driving organizations to adopt a simpler directory structure. Ideally, Active Directory architecture, design, management and operations should seamlessly be monitored and adjusted to keep up with the changes occurring in the larger enterprise. More often than not, however, instead of having in place an Active Directory monitoring strategy there only are periodic reviews that happens usually in response to certain events — some of business nature, some related to changes in technology or products, and some security related.


The following events are most common drivers for Active Directory management optimization efforts:

- Multi-forest company deployment

- Mergers and acquisitions deployment

- Shared addresses with partners deployment

- Integration with Office 365 and Azure AD

- Projects to improve compliance and reduce risk

- Software updates and upgrades

In response to these external drivers, Active Directory can be optimized in a number of ways. Here are a few AD optimization options:

- Assimilate: Transfer users to the target Active Directory, and decommission the source Active Directory.

- Create a consolidated directory: Provide a single virtual or physical directory that combines data from multiple disparate directories.

- Integrate or Migrate: Perform a GALsync to restructure or synchronize contact and user data between Active Directory forests.

- Implement data quality improvements: Deploy an Active Directory reporting tool to discover and eliminate outdated or incorrect information from Active Directory, and begin implementing processes to maintain its data quality over time.
 
Active Directory is the foundation of your network controlling access to some of the most critical resources in your organization. Simplicity is agility. Less complexities reduce risks. The ENow Active Directory monitoring and reporting tool has the ability to uncover cracks in your Active Directory, such as:
- Highly privileged groups (domain admins)

- AD replication errors

- Expensive LDAP queries 

- DNS and name resolution problems

- Poor Exchange performance caused by Active Directory
 
Proactively organize, manage and secure your Active Directory from a single pane of glass with ENow. Start your free trial today!
 

Active Directory Monitoring and Reporting

Active Directory is the foundation of your network, and the structure that controls access to the most critical resources in your organization. The ENow Active Directory Monitoring and Reporting tool uncovers cracks in your Active Directory that can cause a security breach or poor end-user experience and enables you to quickly identify and remove users that have inappropriate access to privileged groups (Schema Admins, Domain Administrators). While ENow is not an auditing software, our reports reduce the amount of work required to cover HIPAA, SOX, and other compliance audits.

Access your FREE 14-day trial to accelerate your security awareness and simplify your compliance audits. Includes entire library of reports.


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