The granular online restore method allows you to retrieve individual directory objects from a backup, and then restore them to a domain controller. The operation can be performed on any domain controller that can be accessed remotely. In addition, granular online restore does not require you to restart the target domain controller, nor does it affect any directory objects that are not selected for recovery.
In addition to selectively restoring individual Active Directory® objects, the granular online restore method allows you to selectively restore individual attributes of objects in Active Directory®, such as the User Password, Group Membership, or User Certificate attributes of a User object. The ability to restore selected attributes ensures that valuable changes, made to Active Directory® objects since the time the backup was created, are not overridden. This provides the flexibility to efficiently resolve potential problems that may result from the improper modification of individual attributes of Active Directory® objects.
The granular online restore should be used in situations where important object data has been inadvertently deleted or changed in Active Directory®, and the changes have been propagated to other domain controllers. To recover from such an event, you can carry out a granular online restore to Active Directory® using a backup that was created before the objects in question were deleted or modified.
After RMAD completes a granular online restore on the target domain controller, the restored objects are replicated to the other domain controllers via the normal replication process. Given that the objects recovered by a granular online restore have a higher version number, recently deleted or modified object data is ignored during replication.
Granular online restore allows you to roll back changes made to Active Directory®, and return individual directory objects and attributes to the state they were in when the backup was created. It is important to note that a granular online restore only affects the objects and attributes selected for recovery. All other objects remain unchanged in Active Directory®. Furthermore, if the value of an attribute in Active Directory® is identical to the value it has in the backup, the granular online restore does not attempt to change the attribute.
A granular online restore is especially useful when you need to recover some directory objects in a short period. For example, suppose a user account is accidentally deleted from Active Directory® but exists in a backup. To recover that user account, you can perform a granular online restore, selecting the user account from the backup. The selected user account is restored to Active Directory® with the same properties and permissions that it had when the backup was created. No other user accounts are affected.
To perform granular online restore, start the Online Restore Wizard and follow the instructions in the wizard.
| Note |
RMAD can also recover individual AD LDS (ADAM) objects. To restore AD LDS (ADAM) objects, use the Online Restore Wizard for AD LDS (ADAM). |
Granular online restore is always authoritative: it restores Active Directory® object data to the state the data had when the backup was created, and any updates that were made after that point are lost. After RMAD completes a granular online restore on the target domain controller, the restored objects are replicated to the other domain controllers via the normal replication process. Given that the objects recovered by a granular online restore have a higher version number, recently deleted or modified object data is ignored during replication.
RMAD supports granular online restore from BMR backups.
The wizard offers two options:
You can restore selected objects in Active Directory® based on the data retrieved from an Active Directory® backup. Select a backup from the list on the Backup Selection page, or click Register to register additional backups.
| NOTE |
For Online Restore Wizard, Recovery Manager for Active Directory supports DC backups even if a DC, where the backups have been done, has been removed from the domain or renamed. The exception is the old computer object, or any other object directly or indirectly linked to the old computer object. For instance, if a user upgrades the operating system on a DC, renames it, and wants to use the old backup collected before changes in the environment were made - this scenario is not supported. |
On the Domain Access Options page, you have the option to access the target domain controller using either LDAP functions only (agentless method) or Restore Agent. For the agentless method, you can select a target domain controller for the restore operation. The Domain Access Options page also allows you to specify the account under which you want the wizard to access the target domain controller.
On the Objects to Be Processed page, you can select objects by searching the backup, browsing the backup tree, or importing the file containing a list of objects’ distinguished names. For the selected objects, on the Processing Options page you can specify whether to process their child objects. Also you can select attributes to be processed, or to process all attributes.
Then, the wizard offers to create comparison reports or perform a restore skipping the comparison. If you choose to perform a comparison, the wizard creates comparison reports. Then you can either proceed to restore or quit without restoring data.
If you choose to skip the comparison, the wizard performs a restore right away. The wizard processes all objects you have selected but skips the restoration of unchanged objects.
You can compare objects selected in one backup with their counterparts in another backup. Only backups of the same domain controller can be compared, and the first of the selected backups must be older than the second one. After unpacking the backups, the wizard allows you to select objects from the first backup and perform a comparison as if the second backup were “live” Active Directory®.
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