Learn Active Directory Consolidation to Easily Join Two ADs

Active Directory consolidation is not a new requirement in this industry. As businesses grow, they often have to make decisions that have a profound effect on how they operate. Joining multiple active directories with each other is one of them.?

It is a vast subject with many nuances, like when to consolidate, how to handle other services, etc. And characters like users, computers, and groups, to name a few. So to limit our scope and not confuse the readers, we opt for a more direct reason>benefit>procedure approach. Without further ado, let's get started.

Why Consolidate Active Directory At All?

The purpose of an AD consolidation stems from a business requirement. To get a more situation-specific idea, refer to the points below:

• Mergers and Acquisitions: When two or more organizations join hands and permanently transform into a new entity. It is not just a formal agreement but a complete realignment of the various components used in the business environment. Thus, AD consolidation is a given.
• Revamping Internal Structure: Even within a larger organization that currently operates multiple domains, a consolidation can combine them for greater efficiency.

Restructuring is not always within large organizations. Even new startups may undergo multiple changes. This is to establish a better foothold in the market.

Thus, organizational restructuring often requires businesses to revamp the way they currently use their Active Directory. Delaying it can lead to severe penalties, like reduced worker efficiency.

Moreover, they also risk falling behind peers in terms of infrastructure. So to avoid the absurd mismatch between identity and vision, administrators may have to join different ADs with each other.

• Changes in Regulatory Framework: New legislation from the government is the main reason. However, the industry itself may adopt new norms to better serve its customers. Regardless of the reason, both of these may result in a reduction of the Active Directory area, or, in other words, a consolidation.
• Enhancing Cyber Security: As cyber criminals find new ways to breach the digital fortress, IT administrators have to stay vigilant at all times. One way in which they can improve security is by combining multiple AD domains into one. It not only reduces the total attack surface available for nefarious entities but also makes SOC monitoring more efficient.
• Cost-cutting: Keeping a single domain is cheaper in the long run. So to reduce expenditures, companies may opt for Active Directory consolidation. However, they also have to keep the cost of consolidation in check.

What Advantages Do Organizations Get After Consolidating Their AD?

• Bypass cross-forest trust issues: Although it is possible to work with multiple forests, each with its unique domain. However, veteran IT admins will agree that this is not the most optimal strategy. Moreover, just using interforest trust creates a hurdle in proper communication between endpoints. Whereas a single-domain AD has no such vulnerability.
• Avoid trouble due to partner liability: Even when you are fulfilling all the necessary rules and regulations, you still might get in trouble if your partner is not. Moreover, as the other AD is out of your direct jurisdiction, you can do nothing but request them. On the other hand, once all the data is under your direct control, you can be sure of all compliance requirements.
• Makes it easier to update and upgrade: A common organization-wide AD makes it easier to deploy updates regarding security, communication, etc. Also, when an organization decides to upgrade at any time in the future, they find it easier to move a single domain than to juggle multiple ones.

Best Practices During Active Directory Consolidation

Treat this as a mini AD migration checklist if you will. Speaking of checklists, that's exactly where an admin should start. So let's see where to go next.

Once you have a checklist of the current AD configuration, begin the schema creation. A smart decision here is to keep all the good parts of the previous installation while not repeating the same mistakes.

New admins might be in a hurry and thus tempted to finish the project with a simple lift and shift. This might work during an Active Directory cross-forest migration. However, consolidation is different.?

So admins are recommended to go for the green field method instead. Where we create a brand new but empty Active Directory. It contains all the necessary structural information but lacks the data. To make it fully functional, we pull out the data from each of the source ADs one by one and place it in the target.??

Multiple passes are made on the source to make sure each bit of data is moved from the source to the target.

Key Points for Choosing the Right AD Consolidation Partner

Joining and transforming Active Directory is a crucial step in a business life cycle. So if the wrong choice is made before one undergoes this process, it can lead to multiple issues down the line. That's why you should check out these criteria that even experts trust when selecting their AD migration partner.?

Identify your own business goals and whether the potential partner can deliver them or not.?

This includes the time you can spare for the consolidation. How do your other systems react to the change? As Active Directory is linked to other services, what's the impact of consolidation on them? Moreover, admins also need to take care not to cross the overall budget allocated towards the project.?

Talk to other IT admins who have recently completed an AD consolidation with a tool. With this, administrators get to know the first-hand experience of difficulties faced during a migration. They can also get a rough idea of the tool's requirements. Moreover, this gives them a third-party review of sorts on the claim fulfillment percentage of the tool.

To make your search easier, we introduce you to the best AD migration solution on the market. Count on SysTools Active Directory Migration solution is all that you need. It goes beyond the ordinary requirements with multi-domain addition and 4 different ways to deal with user passwords. Combine this with the UI, and you get a fully packed utility ready to handle all migrations that arise out of a consolidation requirement.??

Steps to Use the Ultimate AD Merging Utility?

1. Launch the tool after typing the default credentials (Administrator) inside the user ID as well as the password space. The tool allows you to set a custom ID and password inside the settings.?
2. Click on the Register Domain Controller button and it opens a new window. Put the Domain Friendly name and IP address then press the Save & Continue option.
3. Inside the Domains Details screen enter your actual Admin User name and Admin Password for the domain. Move ahead by pressing the Save & Continue button.
4. Switch to the Active Directory tab of the same Domain Controller and hit the Fetch Active Directory Objects button. In the new window check the boxes next to the objects you want to consolidate.
5. Repeat the last two steps for the AD objects of the other domains.?
6. Go to the Migration tab, and hit the Create Migration Scenario option.
7. Type a migration name, choose the respective source and target then hit the Save & Continue button to confirm.
8. On the Migration scenario page choose the Task tab and press the Create Task option.
9. Inside the Create Task window type a name select the workloads, and choose a password configuration category. There also exist options to maintain the user and group level sID History.
10. Next, hit the 3 horizontal dots on the right side of an object row.
11. In the pane that appears go with the default Create radio button(in case of a green field consolidation) and press Select. Repeat for the rest of the objects.
12. Click the Validate option and wait till it turns green.
13. Hit the Start Task option present on the top right corner of your screen. Proceed by pressing the Start button that appears on the prompt window.?

Conclusion

This blog clears out the doubts in the mind of an admin during an Active directory consolidation project. Here we highlighted its purpose changes and scenarios that trigger its need. After that, our discussion went on to explain what parameters should an admin look at before selecting a consolidation partner. As we saw consolidation is indeed a migration for which the only solution required is the one discussed above.