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Top 5 Challenges in Active Directory Management and Ways to Solve Them
February 28, 2025
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Did you know that 95% of Fortune500 companies depend on Active Directory Services (AD) for managing identities and access?
Active Directory Services are the mainspring of IT infrastructure for many businesses, providing essential services for identity and access management. However, managing AD effectively is a challenge for MSPs, as it can impact security, scalability and overall business efficiency. We’ll talk about some of these, and how to address them.
The challenge : Group Policy Objects (GPOs) allow simple centralized management, and are a key driver for Active Directory Domain Services. In many cases, compliance rules can be enforced across the whole organization, and data access regulated for security, with a small set of GPOs. However, actually configuring and managing these GPOs is a fairly complex task.
Traditional Solution : Administrators have traditionally relied on tools like AD Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) to manage GPO changes. While GPMC is very powerful, it is rather cumbersome to use, and failure to master its learning curve and understand how it relates to other AD DS tools such as Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) can cause compliance failures.
Modern Solution: Modern cloud-managed solutions provide simplified, intuitive interfaces for many common GPO-related tasks, such as compliance management or share mapping. With such tools, organizations can reduce the risk associated with policy changes and ensure a simple management process.
The Challenge : Scaling AD to accommodate both growth and shrinkage in SMBs can be quite challenging. Handling the complicated licensing requirements of AD to avoid unnecessary spending or unexpected charges can be quite difficult.
Traditional Solution : Many organizations turned to Microsoft’s Azure Active Directory (Entra ID) to replace their on-premises AD capabilities with a SaaS cloud option. However, Azure AD is cannot fully replace on-premises setups, and may simply not work for large classes of customers that are currently using AD (e.g., medical clinics, accounting firms).
Modern Solution: A lightweight, serverless, hybrid AD architecture offers scalability and integration without the need for dedicated on-premises infrastructure. This approach provides the simplicity and flexibility of the cloud but without losing the benefits of an on-premises AD server.
The Challenge : Traditional on-premises AD approaches need to have an extensive backup strategy implemented to avoid the days or weeks of downtime incurred if the hardware server breaks. Even with a good backup strategy, bringing up a new server, spinning up a new VM, and then sorting out the inevitable gotchas can keep the business tied up for days. This does not even consider the many hours of work required to recreate the AD infrastructure from scratch.
Traditional Solution : Typically, most SMBs will run VMware VMs as their AD servers, on top of robust (and expensive) server-class hardware, and create VMware images for backups. This can be effective, but demands careful planning, regular monitoring, and a willingness to absorb considerable cost and downtime if catastrophe strikes. Also, the restore process can be quite time-consuming.
Modern Solution : Cloud-managed AD solutions offer automatic backups of the AD database and sysvol to secure cloud storage, eliminating the need for manual backups. With zero configuration, ensuring consistent data protection and disaster recovery becomes very simple.
The Challenge : Maintaining security and compliance within an AD environment is an ongoing challenge. Staying compliant with industry standards requires comprehensive auditing and documentation, which can be a labor intensive task.
Traditional Solution : To address these challenges, organizations have relied on third-party auditing and compliance tools. While these tools can enhance visibility and reporting, they often add complexity and cost to the AD management process.
Modern Solution : Integrated features within cloud-managed AD solutions provide simple, bulletproof configuration of compliance features. Comprehensive reporting tools simplify the auditing process, helping organizations in maintaining compliance with industry standards and regulations.
The Challenge : Managing individual user roles, permissions, and access rights can be challenging in environments (particularly with hybrid or remote teams). Traditional AD setups require manual processes and a steep learning curve to manage access effectively, increasing the risk of errors and security vulnerabilities.
Traditional Solution: Administrators have typically managed user and access controls manually or through complex configurations within the AD environment. This approach can be time-consuming and may not scale well with organizational growth.
Modern Solution : Cloud-based user and access management solutions offer simplified, intuitive interfaces for managing roles and permissions. Role-based control (RBAC) features enable quick and secure provisioning of users, ensuring that individuals have appropriate access based on their roles within the organization. These solutions also facilitate easy adjustments to access rights as roles change, enhancing both security and operational efficiency.
Efficient Active Directory Management is critical to maintaining a secure and scalable IT environment. By addressing these key challenges with modern, cloud-managed solutions such as Active Directory Management Gateway Service and Serverless Active Directory, businesses can streamline operations, enhance security, and improve scalability. Embracing these innovations will help organizations future-proof their Active Directory Services and maintain a resilient IT infrastructure.
Choosing the right Active Directory Management Solution can significantly improve your business's efficiency and effectiveness. With so many options available, making the right choice can be challenging. However, Uplevel Systems' cloud-managed Active Directory Management Gateway stands out by offering features and capabilities that consistently meet business needs and exceed client expectations. Curious to know more? Connect with us and let us schedule a consultation with you, today!
