When active directory goes down, everyone notices. Users cannot log in, applications become unusable and organizations lose money. Let’s face it, even without malicious events, people still make mistakes. Although recovering from directory outages can be streamlined with point in time and continuous recovery solutions such as Blackbird Recovery, it’s always less expensive to prevent the outage in the first place.

Microsoft has included recovery capabilities with every release Active Directory (AD) from Windows Server 2000 on. There is a saying that has been around in IT for a long time, “An administrator is only as good as their last backup”. This is because accidental deletions of a single user object to the removal of hundreds even thousands of objects from deleting an organizational Unit (OU) are still a common occurrence. The increasing use of identity management systems and the use of scripting to automate administration tasks have also increased the risk of populating the directory with bad data. This may lead to applications not function correctly or even have security and regulatory compliance implications.