Performing an Active Directory Health Check

This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

A few months ago, I was in a situation where I needed to perform a health check on a customer’s Active Directory (AD) infrastructure in preparation for guiding them through the process of migrating directory objects between forests. I’ve worked with AD for years – and am reasonably familiar with the various utilities – but didn’t really have a formalised method for reviewing its health and the political climate was such that I didn’t want to be the one who had missed an obvious diagnostic (no pressure there then!).

Then I found an eBook which turned out to be a fantastic investment – Andrew Abbate’s Digital Shortcut to Performing an Active Directory Health Check. Published by SAMS and supplied in Adobe PDF format (protected with digital rights management), this book gave me a refresher course on the tools and their use, then describes how to carry out the health check, interpret the data, and fix the problems. Sure, it won’t tell you everything you need to know – but it certainly gave me enough to apply the rest of my skills and knowledge to get to the bottom of the issues we were experiencing.

This eBook is available via the Safari online library; however googling also turned up copies available for purchase and download from a variety of online stores – I bought a copy for $9.99 at eBookMall.

4 thoughts on “Performing an Active Directory Health Check”

Hi I am little confused on your posts what do you mean by migrating between forests. Are you talking about a content management program?

Thanks,

Mike

Mike, a forest is a term used to describe one or more Active Directory domains sharing a common schema. You’ll find a more complete explanation in my 10,000 feet view of AD post from a few years back. Nothing to do with content management. Mark

Microsoft also have an internal tool available to PSS staff only. It is called Active Directory Snapshot Tool. It works for Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 Active Directories. For Windows Server 2008, Microsoft have a Best Practise Tool, Active Directory Best Practices Analyzer. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd378893(WS.10).aspx

There are alot of great free tools and powershell scripts within Microsofts Gallery for check AD health checks. Microsoft also have a free tool for checking replication: http://www.networkangel.net/active-directory-health-check-tools

Mike G says:

Tuesday 1 July 2008 at 22:50

Hi I am little confused on your posts what do you mean by migrating between forests. Are you talking about a content management program?

Thanks,

Mike
Mark Wilson says:

Tuesday 1 July 2008 at 23:06

Mike, a forest is a term used to describe one or more Active Directory domains sharing a common schema. You’ll find a more complete explanation in my 10,000 feet view of AD post from a few years back. Nothing to do with content management. Mark
Mark Timmins says:

Thursday 21 October 2010 at 11:47

Microsoft also have an internal tool available to PSS staff only. It is called Active Directory Snapshot Tool. It works for Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 Active Directories. For Windows Server 2008, Microsoft have a Best Practise Tool, Active Directory Best Practices Analyzer. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd378893(WS.10).aspx
Andrew Fitzgerald says:

Monday 29 June 2015 at 16:48

There are alot of great free tools and powershell scripts within Microsofts Gallery for check AD health checks. Microsoft also have a free tool for checking replication: http://www.networkangel.net/active-directory-health-check-tools