Active Directory

[nickfrp]

Can i export the data in AD in to a test domain "import it". i want to simulate the power of group policys and organizational units which we havent implemented yet into our working enviroment

Thanks
Nick

[k77-widow maker]

check out a application called or made by quest. they have a demo online with full functionality for a limited amount of time.

[colinjm]

I'm sure you can backup the AD to some external media (such as DVD) and then restore it to another machine. this would make restores easier if the network was unavailable/distance involved/development system e.t.c.

I remember learning about it on the Win2K3 courses, but have never used it myself.

[xxplod]

I'm not a techie but you must be able to, we export AD data in to other apps.

[UpTheIron]

Simple answer is "yes".

But lots of ways to do it, depending on the data you want to export, and also the environment you are going to import it into.

Varying from taking a DC offline and moving it to a physically seperate network, to command line tools to export/import objects to some excellent tools from Quest.

What do you want to achieve?

[theboss]

If I were you I would backup a Domain Controller (remember to include System State data) and restore onto an isolated server.

This will ensure you get a *thorough* copy of the AD environment including, for example, the directory configuration and schema partitions, and also any relevant file system objects such as the Sysvol folder which contains group policy objects, scripts, etc.

You might have to do a bit of tidying up afterwards such as siezing FSMO roles if they are split across DCs, making sure DNS works, etc. but you'll have a comple working replica of your production AD.