Mastering Active Directory

Dishan Francis

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781787283077
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Networking
• Edition: 1

Become a master at managing enterprise identity infrastructure by leveraging Active DirectoryAbout This Book• Manage your Active Directory services for Windows Server 2016 effectively• Automate administrative tasks in Active Directory using PowerShell• Manage your organization's network with easeWho This Book Is ForIf you are an Active Directory administrator, system administrator, or network professional who has basic knowledge of Active Directory and are looking to gain expertise in this topic, this is the book for you.What You Will Learn• Explore the new features in Active Directory Domain Service 2016• Automate AD tasks with PowerShell• Get to know the advanced functionalities of the schema• Learn about Flexible Single Master Operation (FSMO) roles and their placement• Install and migrate Active directory from older versions to Active Directory 2016• Manage Active Directory objects using different tools and techniques• Manage users, groups, and devices effectively• Design your OU structure in the best way• Audit and monitor Active Directory• Integrate Azure with Active Directory for a hybrid setupIn DetailActive Directory is a centralized and standardized system that automates networked management of user data, security, and distributed resources and enables interoperation with other directories. If you are aware of Active Directory basics and want to gain expertise in it, this book is perfect for you. We will quickly go through the architecture and fundamentals of Active Directory and then dive deep into the core components, such as forests, domains, sites, trust relationships, OU, objects, attributes, DNS, and replication. We will then move on to AD schemas, global catalogs, LDAP, RODC, RMS, certificate authorities, group policies, and security best practices, which will help you gain a better understanding of objects and components and how they can be used effectively. We will also cover AD Domain Services and Federation Services for Windows Server 2016 and all their new features. Last but not least, you will learn how to manage your identity infrastructure for a hybrid-cloud setup. All this will help you design, plan, deploy, manage operations on, and troubleshoot your enterprise identity infrastructure in a secure, effective manner. Furthermore, I will guide you through automating administrative tasks using PowerShell cmdlets. Toward the end of the book, we will cover best practices and troubleshooting techniques that can be used to improve security and performance in an identity infrastructure.Style and approachThis step-by-step guide will help you master the core functionalities of Active Directory services using Microsoft Server 2016 and PowerShell, with real-world best practices at the end.

Active Directory Services

With this chapter, we are moving towards the third part of this book, which focuses on the Active Directory server roles. There are mainly five Active Directory server roles:

• Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS)
• Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS)
• Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS)
• Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS)
• Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS)

We have already looked into many Active Directory components, features, and capabilities, but we are not quite done yet. This chapter is mainly focused on covering AD DS and the AD LDS related topics such as the following:

• AD LDS overview
• Active Directory replication
• Active Directory sites
• Active Directory database maintenance
• Read-only domain controllers in action
• AD DS backup and recovery

The AD LDS overview

When we talk about Active Directory, we refer to it as a single service, but AD DS is attached to many other components as well. DNS, group policies, and the SYSVOL folder replication are a few example. Each of these components need to operate well in order to run a healthy Active Directory environment. It doesn't come easy; it involves investment on resources, time, and skills. In the Active Directory service, the core values are centralized identity management, authentication, and authorization capabilities. All these extra components make it easy to archive its core values, but at same time, it also opens up risks such as dependencies and security. The failure or compromise of these components/services will make impact on the entire Active Directory infrastructure.

Microsoft Windows Core and Nano Servers also count as operating systems. These don't have fancy GUIs or sparkly applications running. But they are still doing the job of an operating system. It allows users to build them from scratch according to their requirements. It also increases the server up time (less updates), reliability, performance, and security. Soon after Microsoft released the first Active Directory version, IT engineers, application developers, IT professional start requesting a cut down version of AD DS with pure LDAP capabilities. They wanted to eliminate all these dependencies and management requirements, so they could focus on application development upon core AD functions. After Windows Server 2003, Microsoft released Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM), which allowed administrators to run cut down version of Active Directory without group policies, file replication, and so on. It can run on a desktop computer or a member server similar to any other Windows service. Simultaneously, it was providing all the core values of the Active Directory service. With Windows Server 2008, Microsoft renamed it Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services and allowed users to install the role using Server Manager. This version provided more control and visibility to administrators to deploy and manage LDS instances. This was continued with all the AD DS versions after that and was included in Windows Server 2016 too.

Where to use LDS?

Less dependencies, and less management of LDS extended its operation capabilities and in the following sections, I have listed several scenarios where we can use LDS.

Application developments

This is the area that has benefited most from AD LDS capabilities. Application developments involve lots of experiments, tests, and demo systems. If these applications are Active Directory integrated, it is obvious that they need to be developed and tested within the Active Directory environment. During the process, it may be required to build many test environments. If it's full-blown AD DS instances, it will take resources, time, and efforts to deploy and maintain it. AD LDS allows you to run multiple instances of it within the same system independently. Each instance will have its own schema, and engineers can maintain the instance for each application test environments. Even it looks like cut down version and gives the same AD DS authentication and management capabilities so that engineers can easily adopt it. Since AD LDS instance allows to run on a desktop or server version of the operating system, it does have less prerequisites. Therefore, applications can also release with integrated LDS; for example, not every business runs Active Directory. Even though application functions are based on Active Directory features, it is still not easy to convince that everyone should have the Active Directory environment in order to run the application. Instead of this, the application installation can have an integrated LDS instance, and it will install it in the guest system as part of the installation process.

Hosted applications

Nowadays, hosted applications, Software as a Service (SaaS), are a common business operation mode for lots of businesses. These services are normally deployed in the perimeter or in a public network. These applications also can have authentication requirements. But it is not recommended to install AD DS in the perimeter or public network. In such a situation, it is recommended to deploy AD FS to provide the federated access. But it still needs additional resources and skills to deploy and maintain. Instead of this, we can set up the AD LDS instance inside the perimeter/public network and provide the directory-enabled authentication service to applications. It doesn't have any connection with LAN or the other LDS instance in the perimeter network and provides a secured environment by design.

Distributed data stores for Active Directory integrated applications

Most of the Active Directory integrated applications also require schema modifications. After this, the application will store certain datasets in the Active Directory database. If it's multiple applications, Active Directory schema and data continues to grow, it will make a significant impact on Active Directory replication. Especially if it's via slow links. Instead of storing data in Active Directory database, additional datasets of applications can be stored in LDS instance. It will still use AD DS for authentication. Additional datasets stored in the LDS instance will not replicate to any other domain controllers.

Migrating from other directory services

There can be environments and applications, which use legacy X.500 based directory services that like to migrate to AD DS. In such scenarios, AD LDS can be used as a middle man, which also can support X.500 ba...