Initial Synchronization or migration session are taking significant time to complete. What are th (4262000)

What are the best practices in improving DSA performance?  How big is the gain in following the recommendations?

Please refer to the resolution section and the attached document.

In Migration Manager, Directory Migration and Synchronization are performed by Directory Synchronization Agents (DSAs). The performance of the DSA can be much improved by following these recommendations:

1. Index the Matching attribute. This attribute is specified in the Domain Pair Properties | Object Matching | Service Attributes. By default, this is extentionAttribute15 (if exchange is installed in the environment) and adminDisplayName if not.  adminDisplayName is used for all object classes if exchange is not installed, and is always used for certain object classes that do not have extension attributes, such as organizationalUnit.

Important: Please check all object classes to find out which matching attribute is used for each. For optimal performance, index every matching attribute that is being used. The matching attribute for all object classes impacts performance, regardless of what object class is being migrated/synchronized.

In a one-way source to target migration/synchronization, only the target matching attributes need to be indexed. In a two-way scenario, index both source and target service attributes.

Quest Migration Manager Best Practices document suggests:

When synchronizing objects, the Directory Synchronization Agent populates the objects attributes specified as the service attributes in Migration Manager with matching and auxiliary information. It is recommended to index the service attributes in Active Directory to improve the Directory Synchronization Agent performance.

Note: Please refer to the Quest KB 17773  on the step by step guide on how to index matching attributes. 

According to many customers indexing the attribute can increase the performance of the DSA by in some cases over 500 %.

2. Put the ADAM database and the DSA on different computers.

3. Set only the matching rules you need. The matching rules are set in Domain Pair Properties/Object Matching. By default, these include
account name, e-mail, and SIDHistory.  Leaving just the rules you need can significantly improve DSA performance.

4. Run only one DSA task at a time.

Important: For more detailed information please refer to the attached Acrobat document Improving Directory Synchronization Performance.

5. Point QMM DSA to 64 bit Domain Controller by specifying it as preferred DC on the corresponding DSA agent properties under Tools | Agent Manager.  A 64 bit DC proved to operate with much better LDAP performance giving considerable boost to DSA LDAP communications cycles.

6. Place QMM ADAM database on 64 bit server. This will also improve performance of DSA communications with the ADAM database.