Active Directory: Should You Stay or Should You Go?

First, Start with an Assessment

Patrick Renzi

As your business shifts to the cloud, is Active Directory (AD) still the right directory service for your needs? There are pros and cons for sticking with Active Directory but one thing is certain. Whether you stay with your existing Active Directory infrastructure, utilize SaaS based Identities with Azure Active Directory, or move completely to the public cloud to host your domains, you first need to accurately assess your existing Active Directory deployment to understand its role in your organization and determine what you expect to achieve through migration.

For the best way to get the complete rundown on your Active Directory deployment, read on.

Good directory health is essential to the day to day operations of your business; how would you rate the health of your directory? Do you have the required components, services, and related audit trails to support your requirements?

The Connection Software Services Practice can help you answer these crucial questions so you can determine the best way to optimize your directory services and authorize users and provide authentication services to enterprise and cloud-based applications.

Our Microsoft Active Directory Assessment provides a detailed analysis of your existing environment with recommendations and remediation plans to reduce your total cost of ownership (TCO) and improve your return on investment (ROI) .

Our Microsoft-certified engineers follow a rigorous, well-established process using industry best practices and procedures to perform a complete assessment. A Design Review is performed, which primarily focuses on technical interviews of key stakeholders to gather critical information pertaining to the design of the Active Directory infrastructure. A review and analysis of any existing auditing policies and capabilities is also conducted.

A Configuration Review is completed to obtain configuration information for each Active Directory component, including forests, domains, domain controllers, member servers, services, applications, and workstations. A review and analysis of the structure, configuration, and related documentation of all critical business applications is also performed.

After we obtain the critical review information, we compile pertinent application logs and diagnostic reports using various Microsoft utilities. Next, we provide a set of recommendations for issues resolution and infrastructure design improvements based on best practices and on the findings of the reviews and reports. We will then work closely with you to remediate issues found in your AD environment and select the right migration path so you can achieve immediate and long-term improvements.

This approach allows you to objectively gain an accurate picture of how your current Active Directory design and overall computing environment are meeting your business objectives today. You’ll then have a clear view of your options for implementing immediate improvements and long-term scalable solutions that will minimize TCO and maximize ROI.

To determine whether Active Directory is still the right directory services for your organization – or to enable you to evaluate migration options to support cloud services – download our Microsoft Active Directory Assessment brochure or fill out this information request form and you’ll receive a response from us by the close of the next business day.

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