Active directory monitoring involves looking at the active directory service created by Microsoft for use in Windows networks.
Part of this monitoring looks at domain controllers and the assignment of authentications and workloads to various parts of the network. In general, active directory monitoring helps to provide consistent results for logons, account management, command control, application running and more. Administrators may set a "baseline" or determine thresholds for alerts, or otherwise look at network traffic to make sure that authentication is working the way it is supposed to. These attempts utilize Lightweight Directory Access Protocol queries, and enforce data consistency.
Some practical examples of active directory monitoring include looking at certain "lockout" issues or other miscalibrations that could result in loss of services, lagging server performance, time-outs and other obstacles to user access. With active directory monitoring resources, administrators can catch these kinds of issues before they become headaches for users, bypassing floods of service ticket requests or help desk requests. Active directory monitoring helps to "debug" systems and increase the efficiency of operations in high-traffic networks.
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Written by Justin Stoltzfus
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