Managing Active Directory Performance. An Overview on Performance Monitoring and Management. Performance monitoring is the process of accurately and consistently measuring performance, so that you can identify any potential bottlenecks which may be impairing the way in which Active Directory performs within your environment. A bottleneck can take place on any Windows subsystem or network component, and occurs when one resource prevents a different resource from operating optimally. Incorrectly configured settings or the insufficient distribution of resources between network components can result in bottlenecks occurring. Find Active Directory Bind Dns' title='Find Active Directory Bind Dns' />2. Now, lets start using sambatool utility to administer Samba4 Active Directory and manage our users. In order to create a user on AD use the following command. Steve Friedls Unixwiz. Tech Tips Security considerations of public Active DirectoryLDAP. Monitoring performance can be considered the initial step in defining any performance optimization strategy for your network or network resources. Before you can optimize performance, you have to identify and eliminate existing bottlenecks, or potential bottlenecks. There are a few system and network monitoring tools provided by Windows Server 2. Active Directory performance. The steps involved in a typical performance monitoring process are listed below. IC195596.gif' alt='Find Active Directory Bind Dns' title='Find Active Directory Bind Dns' />Because performance monitoring and optimization is a continuous process, you should regularly monitor performance, especially when business needs and requirements change. Define a baseline of current performance. Identify existing and potential bottlenecks. Plan for, and effect any changes necessary to deal with all identified bottlenecks. Measure the impact or success of any implemented changes. A few factors that should be considered when monitoring and managing performance are detailed in the following section. Making changes in a production environment should be done with care. You should plan for, and test all changes prior to implementing them. It is recommended to effect one change at a time, if you are implementing changes to improve performance. This strategy would assist you in identifying the exact changes which resulted in the performance increase. Find Active Directory Bind Dns' title='Find Active Directory Bind Dns' />When defining the base measurements to use to monitor performance, keep the measurement component consistent. Keep a record of performance history, and of any changes which were implemented to improve performance. When it comes to monitoring and managing Active Directory performance, the tasks which you typically need to perform are summarized below You have to regularly monitor Active Directory to ensure the integrity and reliability of the Active Directory database, and performance of your Active Directory domains and forests. Regularly monitoring Active Directory would assist in speeding up the process of resolving performance issues. Error messages generated by Active Directory and the File Replication Service FRS are recorded in the directory service log and file replication service log in Event Viewer. You would need to firstly understand these logs, and then monitor them. Warning and informational messages are also recorded in the directory and file replication service logs. Digico Sd9 Mac Software'>Digico Sd9 Mac Software. Box2d For Flash Games. You can use the NTDS, File. Replica. Conn, and File. Replica. Set performance objects to enable System Monitor to track Active Directory and FRS replication performance. An importance task associated with managing the performance of the Active Directory is defragmenting the Active Directory database. Defragmenting the Active Directory database not only improves performance, it also recovers disk space. To improve performance you might need to move the Active Directory database or log files to a new faster hard drive or array of hard drives. This is typically necessary when the size of the Active Directory database and components increases, and usually involves replacing your slower drives and controllers with faster drives and controllers. Defragmenting the Active Directory Database. With Windows Server 2. Active Directory, a garbage collection process starts each 1. The garbage collection process is a maintenance cycle that basically purges expired objects from the Active Directory database, and deletes unnecessary log files. Another function within the garbage collection process is the performance of online defragmentation of the Active Directory database, and the re indexing of its data to enable faster access. These two functions are the last functions performed by the garbage collection process, and generally increase the performance of the Active Directory database. The online defragmentation process of the Active Directory database does not reduce the size of the database file, nor does it recover available free space from the Active Directory database. The defragmentation of the Active Directory database is necessary because as data is deleted from the database, gaps which ultimately reduce read or write performance, exist in the data as it is located on the physical disk. Defragmenting the Active Directory database assists in keeping the database functioning at its optimal performance level for read and write operations. A read operation and write operation can be spilt into two components, namely the data seeking component, and the data reading or writing component. With reference to a typical write operation, seeking relates to finding the next free space that you can write data to, and data writing refers to the commitment of data on the disk. When gaps exist in the data as it is located on the physical disk, seek time is increased. This in turn leads to poorer performance of the Active Directory database. As mentioned earlier, the online defragmentation process of the Active Directory database does not reduce the size of the database file, nor does it recover available free space. You can however perform an offlinedefragmentation of the Active Directory database if you need to recover available free space from the database. A number of Active Directory management and maintenance tasks can be performed using the Ntdsutil utility. These include Performing an offline defragmentation of the Active Directory database. Performing an Active Directory database repair. Performing certain directory services restore operations. Moving the Active Directory database. Deleting domain controller entries from Active Directory. To perform an offline defragmentation of the Active Directory database, you have to boot in the Directory Services Restore Mode so that the Active Directory database remains offline. In Directory Services Restore Mode, a domain controller boots without a copy of the Active Directory database. You can switch to Directory Services Restore Mode by rebooting the computer, and then pressing F8 when prompted during startup. How to change the garbage collection interval how often online defragmentation of the Active Directory database occursYou must use of the following utilitiestools to change the garbage collection interval LDP. ADSI script. ADSI Edit. To change the garbage collection interval, using ADSI Edit, follow the steps below. Place the Windows Server 2. CD ROM in the CD ROM drive. Start the Windows Support Tools Setup Wizard. On the End User License Agreement screen, click I Agree. Click Next. Insert your name, and the name of the organization. Click Next. Set the location for the installation of the support tools. Click Install Now. After the installation, click Finish. Click Start, Run, and enter mmc in the Run dialog box. Click OK. From th File menu, click AddRemove Snap in. When the AddRemove Snap in dialog box opens, click Add. When the Add Standalone Snap in dialog box opens, select ADSI Edit, and then click Add. Click Close. Click OK to exit the AddRemove Snap in dialog box. How to Back Up Active Directory in Windows 1. Steps. 1Understand what constitutes a good backup to properly plan a backup schedule. At least two domain controllers should be backed up in each domain, including one that is an operations master role holder. The backup should contain the system state and the contents of the system disk. Backups should be less than 6. Log on to the Domain Controller locally as an administrator or a backup operator. Left click on the start button. Navigate to Programs, Accessories, System Tools. Select Backup. Click on the backup wizard button and choose next. Choose back up selected files, drives, or network data. Select System State on the screen that asks what items to back up. Click the plus sign next to the drive letter that contains the system files to expand the selection. Select system disk. Click next. Specify a folder or tape device to backup to in the Where to Store the Backup choice. Name the file if using file backup, or select the tape to be used if using a tape in the Backup Media or File Name box. Make sure the selection Prompt to replace data is included under the How category. If necessary, select the Advanced button and follow the prompts until reaching the Media Options screen. Choose Replace the data on the media with this backup. Follow the prompts to the finish screen. Choose yes to overwrite data.