What s New Guide: Version 5.6 A QUEST SOFTWARE COMPANY 1. 8 0 0. 4 2 4. 9 4 1 1 w w w. s c r i p t l o g i c. c o m
WHAT S NEW IN ACTIVE ADMINISTRATOR 5.6? Contents...3 Active Administrator Product Overview...3 Active Administrator Version 5.6 Release Summary...3 Role Based Access Application Trustees & Permissions...4 Auditing and Reporting...5 More Auditing: New Event Definitions...5 Server Configuration Report Improvements...5 Active Administrator Console Start Page... 6 Server Manager Start Page Enhancements...7 Group Policy Management & Reporting Enhancements...8 GPO Restore Improvements...8 New Ability to Link GPOs to Organizational Units (OUs)...8 Usability Improvements for GPOs...8 Resultant Set of Policies (RSOPs) Group Policy Modeling...8 Recovery Enhancement... 9 Licensing Improvements... 9 Summary... 9 What s New in Active Administrator 5.6? Page 2
Active Administrator Product Overview Active Administrator is a complete and proactive Active Directory (AD) management solution. Active Administrator provides one integrated platform for Active Directory management and auditing for security and compliance, increasing productivity and improving business continuity in organizations with Windows networks. Active Administrator provides advanced management features including centralized event auditing and reporting with notification and remediation, back up and recovery, simplified delegation of AD, and Group Policy offline editing and rollback. This release is beneficial for administrators who are doing new or upgrade deployments to Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2. The familiar ScriptLogic point, click, done interface and intuitive new features for Windows 2008 R2 can reduce both management and learning time for Microsoft s newest Active Directory releases. Beyond Active Directory management, Active Administrator can also greatly ease and reduces administration time spent before and after domain migrations and consolidation projects. This exciting new release of Active Administrator 5.6 is available for evaluation by all new customers and prospects and those who are current in maintenance to upgrade. The product and all associated documentation can be downloaded from the ScriptLogic Active Administrator Website. We d love to hear what you think of this new release and how we can improve the product so be sure to send in your feedback! Active Administrator Version 5.6 Release Summary Active Administrator 5.6 is a focused release that introduces powerful and exciting new features to increase security, convenience and product capabilities for Active Directory administrators. Release highlights are: Application role based access Trustees and Permissions limit access to areas of the application Key enhancements across Auditing, Group Policy, Resultant Set of Policies Modeling and Reporting Total solution for Windows 2008 & R2 new features facilitate management and ease deployments Usability enhancements simpler and easier to reduce administration time Delegating and managing access to more than one administrator is becoming a necessity as organizational IT staff, responsibilities, and compliance regulations grow. Administrators need a simple way to meet their network and Active Directory management challenges. This is why so many administrators have come to rely on Active Administrator s core features around management, security and auditing, and now by setting up Trustees and Permissions, it is possible to manage and delegate out areas. With v5.6, auditing includes more events and enhancements and all areas in the product fully support and manage Windows 2008 R2 new settings. New usability enhancements make it simpler and easier to use Active Administrator. Network administrators are busier every day, doing more with less. This new release reduces the number of clicks and navigation required to perform common tasks. The highlight can be seen in our new Start Pages simple overview pages that provide easy access to what can be done and where from within the Active Administrator platform. What s New in Active Administrator 5.6? Page 3
Role Based Access Application Trustees & Permissions This release introduces a new feature set Active Administrator Trustees and Permissions that enables limiting access to areas of Active Administrator. This new feature is an application level access model and does not require any special Active Directory setup or changes to use. It is configured in the Application Server Management (ASM) console, available via a link from the Start Page, and from the Tools menu. All modifications to application permissions are audited and configurable for alerts, notifications and reporting to demonstrate compliance. In addition, the configured Trustees and Permissions are also shown in the Server Configuration Report from the Server Management Console. Trustees and permissions can be configured for: Security and Delegation Group Policy Management Auditing Recovery Server Management Console Challenge: Using an integrated solution like Active Administrator is much simpler than installing separate products for administrators, but this poses a challenge for some administrators who need to delegate management in their environments. For example, it is becoming common to have external Auditors onsite as part of a compliance audit; this Auditor would only need access the Auditing area and have ability to create ad hoc reports in the console quickly. The Auditor has no need (actually creates a risk) to access more complex areas surrounding AD management, such as Group Policy Management or Recovery from AD backups, both of which are easily managed through Active Administrator. Active Administrator 5.6 solves this problem through a simple, but flexible new permissions model that can be customized to meet different needs. Solution: Active Administrator continues to work in conjunction with your existing network and Active Directory security configurations today, and, by using Active Templates combined with Trustees and Permissions security, conscious environments can ensure that appropriate user access levels are set and maintained both in Active Administrator and in Active Directory. What s New in Active Administrator 5.6? Page 4
Auditing and Reporting This release introduces a few key enhancements around auditing, reporting, and accessibility to data. Several new events have been added that can be audited and reported on as part of the Active Administrator Auditing framework. The Server Configuration Report has been expanded with more information. More Auditing: New Event Definitions New or updated events for Vista & 2008, 2008 R2 Auditing FSMO changes Audit Policy Change (Event ID 4719) Domain Controller Events and Security State changes Windows is starting up (Event ID 4608) Windows is shutting down (Event ID 4609) System time was changed (Event ID 4616) More self auditing of Active Administrator Application Agent reconnects to database after failure New events for Trustees and Permissions Server Configuration Report Improvements The Server Configuration Report can be scheduled and automatically delivered to a network location or email. This report now shows more details of the system such as Domain Controller Discovery features, all DCs for domains managed, auditing agent information and status, Trustees and Permissions, and Licensing information. Challenge: Administrators need a quick and easy way to access as much auditing information as possible about the Active Directory environment and any changes made, proactively without having to scan domain controller event logs, run reports manually, or wait to hear of the after effects and problem reports from users who can t log in! Administrators also need to have customizable alerting and reporting, as each organization may have different business workflows, change control procedures and auditing requirements. Solution: Active Administrator has an Active Audit framework that collects, analyzes, and stores all information in a centralized database. No more searching through separate event logs. Auditing is customizable and quick with reports, wizards to guide scheduling, alerts, notification rules, and what actions to trigger based on conditions. By building a smart auditing environment, administrators can deal with more complex Active Directory tasks, but have peace of mind to know all aspects of the Active Directory environment are maintained and secured so, when needed, can quickly see the full audit trail of who made what change, the before & after values, and where the change took place. What s New in Active Administrator 5.6? Page 5
Active Administrator Console Start Page Active Administrator offers many powerful, broad features in one integrated platform. Because it is a broad product with many different areas it can take a little while to get familiar what the product can do and where to find those features. Both new and existing Administrators may find it is convenient to use Start Pages as a quick launch point and as a reminder for less commonly used items that might save time. The Start Pages show easily what Active Administrator can do and how to do it. Customer Feedback We value customer input as it helps make ScriptLogic products better, so we added another way to send us feedback. If there are new things you were looking for in Active Administrator v5.6, or something we can add that would make your day easier, something you love (or hate) tell us don t be shy! What s New in Active Administrator 5.6? Page 6
Server Manager Start Page Enhancements The Application Server Management component has been updated with an improved Start Page that includes easy access to the new features for application permissions and trustees, the ability to schedule a server configuration report, and links to send feedback to and search Technical Support information online. This screen makes it quick and easy to manage all aspects of the Active Administrator environment. Customer Feedback Seeing a trend here? Yes, it is another Feedback Link go ahead share your experiences with Active Administrator and your environment. Customer environments are all different, and we appreciate hearing from you. Hint: ScriptLogic is actively developing on our Active Administrator 6.x Series Roadmap, so it is a great time to send in your ideas or drop us a note if you would like to be participate in customer focused discussions and contribute to what is coming next! What s New in Active Administrator 5.6? Page 7
Group Policy Management & Reporting Enhancements Several smaller features have been introduced around Group Policy Management, Delegation, Reporting and Restore with Version 5.6 to add new functionality and simplify workflow for existing tasks. Here are the highlights in these areas: GPO Restore Improvements A small, but important enhancement that makes it easy to double check that the right GPO is the one being restored helps to prevent accidental changes. During the GPO Restore process there is an optional step that gives the ability to compare the selected restore version against the GPO Offline Repository or Live version. The Group Policy Restore report has also been updated and replaced with the new HTMLstyle report. New Ability to Link GPOs to Organizational Units (OUs) Group Policy now includes an ability to link GPOs directly to Organizational Units (OUs) to streamline delegations. This feature is something that was also made possible in GPMC with Windows Server 2008 and above. Usability Improvements for GPOs Copy and Paste functionality has been added to the GPO management areas to ease usage, as this is a familiar workflow that is available in the GPMC as well. All of the Group Policy selection screens have been upgraded and standardized to the easy to use format for selections (new dialog introduced with previous release and Group Policy Comparison Reporting). Resultant Set of Policies (RSOPs) Group Policy Modeling All Resultant Set of Policies Modeling and Reporting have been updated with this latest release. The RSOP and What If scenarios help Administrators simulate what would happen with potential changes in Active Directory and Group Policy. Doing this manually could take hours for administrators to manually review what might happen. The RSOP calculations and reports now include GPO Preferences and other detailed new information for Windows Server 2008 & R2 environments. The RSOP engine has been updated and is more consistent with the information and formatting that administrators see today in newer versions of the Microsoft GPMC tool. The RSOP reports have all been replaced HTML style reporting, similar to what is used in other areas of Group Policy Reporting. What s New in Active Administrator 5.6? Page 8
Recovery Enhancement Active Administrator console provides many Recovery options with ability to recover quickly from Active Directory Backups. Recovering accidental deletions of user objects and all associated attributes is a common task, with options for password handling on restore that include recovering passwords from Active Directory, setting a new password manually, and randomly generating passwords. To save a step when doing a Recovery for Active Directory user objects the application console manage passwords area now pre populates the password recovery length selection using the default domain password policy. Licensing Improvements As organizations grow and diversify, it may become harder for the main Administrator to know what domains or users are consumed as part of Active Administrating licensing. Active Administrator continues to be licensed by the number of enabled users in the Active Directory domain. Several new conveniences make it easier to see current license status and usage information have been added with v5.6 designed to reduce the amount of time administrators have to spend keep tracking and managing their Active Administrator licensing. The Application console includes a licensing dashboard to quickly view current licensing info, export the information, save it to a file, apply a new license or review the licensing terms. The Server Configuration Report includes the license information and a new informational message is displayed when the applications loads if the usage exceeds what an organization is licensed for to simplify compliance. Summary This release adds new and exciting features that streamline Active Directory related tasks and increase value of Active Administrator. This v5.6 release of Active Administrator continues to extend Active Administrator areas for advanced management including centralized event auditing and reporting, back up and recovery, simplified delegation of AD, and Group Policy offline editing and roll back. Active Administrator is the most comprehensive and proven product on the market today for overall Active Directory management. This Product Guide highlights some of the new features in Active Administrator 5.6; for more general product information on this award winning solution visit the ScriptLogic Website. Copyright 2010 ScriptLogic Corporation All Rights Reserved. What s New in Active Administrator 5.6? Page 9