Virtualizing Microsoft Active Directory
VMware technology is fully compatible with Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 operating systems in both native and mixed mode environments. When implemented properly, running domain controllers and other directory workloads on virtual machines can help you streamline management without sacrificing the security or performance of your Active Directory infrastructure.
Maintain Control over Access to Virtual Machine Disk Files
Maintaining tight control over access to virtual machine disk files is critical to security when running domain controllers in a virtualized environment. VMware provides role-based management capabilities with granular access control that extends and enhances Active Directory’s delegation capabilities, enabling you to enforce separation of administrative access between applications and domain controllers.
64-bit Power: Cache Your Entire Active Directory Database
When running 64-bit versions of Windows Server, one of the primary goals is to contain the entire Active Directory database within the virtual machine’s RAM cache. VMware technology lets you assign as much as 64GB of memory to each virtual machine—more than enough to accommodate a database of several million users while avoiding performance hits related to disk operations.
Get Hardware-Independent Availability and Disaster Recovery
VMware provides a cost-effective alternative to traditional solutions for failover and disaster recovery with distributed infrastructure capabilities that eliminate the need for duplicate hardware.
VMware technology detects server failures automatically and can restart a domain controller on another VMware-enabled server in minutes. You can even prioritize the restart or isolation status for individual virtual machines to ensure proper restoration of service.
Rely on a Production-proven Platform
VMware offers a mature, customer-proven virtualization platform on which to base your Microsoft Active Directory environment. More than 85% of VMware customers deploy VMware in production IT environments, and 54% of customers use VMware as their standard platform for delivering enterprise applications.
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Customer Success Stories
Aspen Pharmacare
Aspen Pharmacare is Africa’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturer and the leading supplier of generic medicines to both private and public sectors in South Africa. The company uses VMware Infrastructure to ensure that its data centers run efficiently to support Active Directory and other critical services in a widely distributed environment.
Read the Aspen Pharmacare Success Story
QUALCOMM
By adopting VMware technology, QUALCOMM has gained just-in-time provisioning, improved performance, faster recovery from hardware failure and higher quality of service for Active Directory and other key services. The company now deploys all applications—production or otherwise—in virtual machines.
Read the QUALCOMM Success Story
Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind
The Royal NZ Foundation of the Blind (RNZFB) is New Zealand’s primary provider of vision-related services to blind, deaf and blind and vision-impaired people. The RNZFB runs Active Directory on VMware Infrastructure 3 in production environments as a cost-effective way to ensure rapid disaster recovery from site-wide outages.
