Microsoft TechNet Edge has a great collection of videos. One that I would like to call your attention to is this Active Directory Best Practices: Ten Years Later. If you touch the AD at all, I’d encourage you to watch the 55 minute video. It’s broken down into different sections like organizing OUs, managing sites, and extreme consoles.
Even if you have been using the Active Directory for the past 10 years, I would still recommend watching it. As I have moved across a few organizations in recent years, I’ve noticed very strong cultural identities where AD use seems to have developed in silos. One organization’s methods of using the Active Directory isn’t necessarily better or worse than another’s but it can really pay off to hear some thoughts from outside the culture. You might be able to learn better ways of organizing your structure, new methods and structures, and different tools for Active Directory management or related software packages like sharepoint migration tools. The video goes through the best practices, just see how well you align with them.
Active Directory Best Practices: Ten Years Later
You can download the slides to go along with the video.
Ten years after Active Directory’s release, a lot has been learned. Unfortunately, many organizations rolled out Active Directory early on and never had the time or resources to revisit what *really* needs to be done to secure and manage the enterprise directory service. Dan Holme, who has led Active Directory designs and redesigns for Fortune-caliber clients, shares the best practices that you may have missed in this Active Directory design and management “rapid fire” session. What has worked and what has failed in the “real world,” and why, and what can you learn from those lessons?
Speaker
A graduate of Yale University and Thunderbird, Dan Holme has spent over a decade as a consultant and trainer, delivering solutions to tens of thousands of IT professionals from the most prestigious organizations and corporations around the world. He has supported Active Directory design and implementation at enterprises such as Raytheon, ABN AMRO, Johnson & Johnson, and General Electric. Among his favorite roles is as Microsoft Technologies Consultant for NBC Olympics, a role he played in Torino and in Beijing. Dan is also a contributing editor for Windows IT Pro magazine, has been awarded Microsoft MVP status (Directory Services, 2007 and Office SharePoint Server, 2008) and has authored numerous best-selling books.