Recovery Manager for AD Disaster Recovery Edition 10.3.1 - User Guide

Audit of objects and operations

To assist with troubleshooting lost or changed Active Directory® objects, AD LDS (ADAM) objects, or Group Policy objects, Recovery Manager for Active Directory provides the ability to compare the current state of individual objects in Active Directory® or AD LDS (ADAM) with that in an Active Directory® or AD LDS (ADAM) backup. This functionality is particularly useful for locating the source of and resolving problems resulting from the deletion or modification of critical objects.

During a restore operation, Recovery Manager for Active Directory allows for the creation of comparison reports, which present the changes that have occurred in Active Directory® or AD LDS (ADAM) since the last backup, without actually applying changes to Active Directory® or AD LDS (ADAM). Such reports show the objects that were deleted or modified since the backup was made. In addition, they show the properties of directory objects and settings of Group Policy objects that would change during the operation. An administrator can then review these changes and decide whether to apply them.

Integration with Change Auditor for Active Directory

To provide information on who modified particular Active Directory® objects, Recovery Manager for Active Directory integrates with Change Auditor and includes the Change Auditor data into the reports.

From version 10.0.1, Recovery Manager for Active Directory restores the deleted object(s) and restores the last change (if any) that was made to the object attributes after creating the backup, using the data from the Change Auditor database. This functionality is based on the auditing capability provided by Change Auditor for Active Directory, an award-winning product that helps to proactively track, audit, report, and alert on vital Active Directory® changes in real-time and without the overhead of auditing.
You can find out more about Change Auditor for Active Directory at http://quest.com/products/changeauditor-for-active-directory.

For details about this feature, see Integration with Change Auditor for Active Directory.

Management Shell

The Recovery Manager for Active Directory Management Shell, built on Microsoft Windows® PowerShell® technology, provides a command-line interface that enables automation of backup/recovery related administrative tasks. With this Management Shell, administrators can manage Computer Collections, backup/recovery sessions, compare, and start backup/recovery jobs.

The Recovery Manager for Active Directory Management Shell command-line tools (cmdlets), like all the Windows® PowerShell® cmdlets, are designed to deal with objects-structured information that is more than just a string of characters appearing on the screen. The cmdlets do not use text as the basis for interaction with the system, but use an object model that is based on the Microsoft .NET platform. In contrast to traditional, textbased commands, the cmdlets do not require the use of text-processing tools to extract specific information. Rather, you can access portions of the data directly by using standard Windows® PowerShell® object manipulation commands.

Scheduling and automation

Creation of Backups

Recovery Manager for Active Directory (RMAD) enables administrators to schedule the creation of backups. This functionality helps reduce the network workload and can save many hours of the administrators’ valuable time. When scheduling the creation of backups, RMAD relies on Task Scheduler - the Windows scheduler service. A unified graphical interface and wizard assistance provide easy access to the backup scheduling features of RMAD.

RMAD makes the creation of backups a straightforward task. Once the backup creation options and scheduling are set up, the backup creation process becomes an automatic, unattended operation.

See the Best practice for schedule and retention in the Frequently asked questions section for some suggestions on scheduling of backups.

Project Settings Verification

RMAD allows the administrators to schedule the forest recovery project verification. This functionality lets you automate the settings verification to ensure that the recovery project is in valid state and can be used for forest recovery.

Antimalware Checks

RMAD scans BMR and Active Directory backups for viruses as a part of the verification process. The best practice is to use the scheduled verification to have up-to-date backup scan results and to run anti-malware checks in the background because this process is time-consuming.