Active Directory Domain Services 2016

Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) has been in the industry for over 15 years now. The first Microsoft AD version was released with Windows Server 2000. After that, with each and every Microsoft Server release, a new AD DS version was released too. These new versions brought changes that improved the functions, security, manageability, and reliability of identity infrastructures.

Each and every time Microsoft releases a new version of their software, IT engineers, professionals, and administrators rush in to figure out what is new in it. It's good practice to be on top of industry trends. However, simply migrating to the latest version of AD DS is not going to solve your identity challenges. In many cases, I have seen people upgrading just for the sake of it. First, we need to evaluate our requirements against the new features and gain an understanding of how upgrading can benefit the existing identity infrastructure. Then, we can introduce new features wisely.

Microsoft released AD DS 2016 at a very interesting point in the technological timeline. As I stated in the previous chapter, today's identity infrastructure requirements for enterprises are challenging. From Fortune 500 companies to small, local businesses, many enterprises already use cloud-based services for their operations, such as software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS). These cloud services also require some sort of identity and access management. These new requirements also extend the security boundaries of an enterprise's identity infrastructure. Therefore, legacy protections used for identity infrastructures no longer fall in line with these new changes. Considering these industry trends and requirements, the primary investment in AD DS 2016 was identity infrastructure security and hybrid cloud collaborations.

In this chapter, the following AD DS 2016 features will be explained in detail: