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Monitor Active Directory with Azure AD Connect Health

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Article from ADMIN 40/2017

By Thomas Joos

Microsoft cloud service Azure Active Directory Connect Health supports monitoring of Active Directory, especially in large and distributed environments, but the tool is also useful for monitoring hybrid landscapes using Azure Active Directory.

The monitoring focus of Azure Active Directory Connect Health [1] is the Azure AD Connect servers that synchronize data from Active Directory (AD) with Microsoft Azure. Information and performance data from local domain controllers (DCs) also are monitored and displayed in the web interface. In addition to modern operating systems such as Windows Server 2016 and 2012 (R2), you can connect Server 2008 R2 Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) servers and DCs. The service does not target companies that do not use Microsoft Azure and Azure AD, however.

Where organizations synchronize usernames and passwords between different forests and the Azure AD, the tool provides detailed insights into whether the data is replicated properly. This kind of tool is necessary to provide synchronization support, especially when using multiple DCs, sites, and domains, because it keeps an eye on server data and performance information and notifies you in case of problems. Because monitoring takes place in the cloud, enterprises do not need their own server infrastructure for the service. Instead, the data is transferred via an agent that is installed on the servers. Last but not least, the service ensures superior security, because unsuccessful and failed login attempts against Azure AD and AD FS can be logged.

Monitoring Local and Azure AD

Hybrid deployments with Exchange and Office 365, SharePoint, and SharePoint Online in Office 365 also can be monitored. Wherever authentication against Azure AD is intended and an exchange of usernames and passwords with a local AD occurs, you need to create an option for verifying the exchange of the authentication data, in particular for local changes to passwords that need to be synchronized in the cloud. Even if only small volumes of data are being synchronized, problems in this area would mean that users

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