Chapter 11 - Ensuring Active Directory Availability

Abstract

An important part of the administrator's job is ensuring that the Windows Server 2003 network's directory services are highly available, and prevent performance problems and downtime issues that can interrupt a user's ability to work on the network. This chapter explores how to maintain high availability of the Active Directory (AD) services. It also discusses about the Active Directory database and the importance of system state data to Active Directory availability. The chapter explains fault tolerance plans and Active Directory performance issues. It illustrates how to perform necessary maintenance tasks, such as defragging the database. Furthermore, the chapter addresses how to monitor or move the database, backup and restoration of the Active Directory, and how to troubleshoot Active Directory availability. It is noted that the Active Directory service is based on a transactional database system. “Transactional” refers to the transaction logs that enable the system to have robust recovery and data tracking in the event of unscheduled hardware outages, data corruption, and other problems that can arise in a complex network operating system environment.