When Active Directory (AD) goes down, it’s the same as the electricity going off – productivity stops. Active Directory is the single authoritative source of users within your organizations and controls access to mission-critical business applications. That’s why selecting the right software partner to help you build out your Active Directory disaster recovery plan is so important.
This blog post will explore the question of who to trust with your Active Directory disaster recovery strategy and why.
Why the startup is a non-starter for Active Directory disaster recovery solutions
Startups are fun and exciting. They are disruptors and bring amazing products and services to organizations and individuals – I just love a good scooter ride through downtown!
But for reasons stated in the opening paragraph, Active Directory is not about being fun or exciting, and it should NEVER be disrupted. It’s exactly like electricity; it should just work without zapping anyone. It’s a critical piece of our infrastructure that needs to operate as it’s supposed to operate.
The startup life, regardless of their Series funding stage, is tenuous. Here are a few example of why that may introduce disruption to your AD, your support model, your ability to recover in a disaster, and your user’s productivity.
1. They focus on fixing one thing
Startups find one thing to fix and focus on that, and sometimes they do that one thing really well. But an enterprise’s Active Directory is comprehensive and complex. So why would you want a one-off product to pay for, support and update for every different piece of your hybrid AD cyber resilience strategy?
2. Their existence is dependent on getting the next customer – not customer success
A round of $XX million dollars in Series funding is great, but how long does that last, especially now when the IT spending market is expect to plummet $300 billion in 2020 according to Gartner? Startups are very much focused on getting that next customer because it means they get to stay in business that much longer. Is this the reliability and stability you need for your enterprise Active Directory?
3. Limited customer scale limits their view into what the market needs
When a startup’s existence is dependent on the next customer, their focus is on the next customer’s needs. This hyper-focus on the unique needs of each customer sounds noble, but it misses the broader view and limits their ability to anticipate the needs of the market. Active Directory is twenty years old, and while deployments vary in size and complexity, to an established software vendor, the needs are well known and the scale of customers across various industries helps them anticipate where the market is going (like being able to focus on hybrid AD disaster scenarios).
4. Support and product management is not fully available, if at all, when you’re restoring late at night or across the world
Active Directory recovery requires follow-the-sun support because your organization is either global or you’re doing maintenance and updates at night when no one is around (or both). Startups have smaller support staffs, which may be in various time zones, but their ability to serve multiple customers is limited to the number of folks in those time zones.
Furthermore, with startup attention on the next customer, it is difficult for them to pause development for a series of large customer needs. They may want to, but it will affect custom customer features, resulting in lost customers. Simply put, startups have a hard time scaling up their support.
The benefits of going with the stable vendor to support your Active Directory backup and recovery plan
As we dive into this section, let’s revisit AD as the ubiquitous utility that we must not take for granted. Like electricity or water, AD should work and be available to connect the right users to the right resources. When you need AD to be stable, you need stable support in case of accidents, corruption or malicious attacks.
So what does stable look like?
It looks like Quest Software, and let me make the case why.
1. Quest “invented the wheel” when it comes to Active Directory backup and recovery
Twenty years ago AD was released; 25 years ago Quest Software came into existence to support IT management with our solutions. So when AD hit the market, we were already there supporting it. In fact, by our last count, we’ve helped move, manage and secure over 336 million AD users these past 20 years.
AD, especially AD recovery, is a huge part of our business. It’s why we’re called the go-to AD experts. And it’s not just our established date that precedes AD, it’s also the vast number of employees who have been here for 15, 17, 20+ years still focused on R&D, product management, and support for our Microsoft business.
Why go to someone re-inventing the wheel when you can go to the people who invented it?
2. Quest has the market perspective to anticipate the next evolution of AD disaster recovery strategy
Given our years in this business and the breadth of our customer list for Recovery Manager for Active Directory (RMAD) portfolio, we know the industry and can anticipate where the market is going and meet it there. Very large, large, medium and small businesses use RMAD, and so does a broad section of every major vertical. We have the scale, not the worry about getting the next customer.
This scale gives us stability in our approach to product development.
3. Quest has the most comprehensive hybrid AD recovery portfolio on the market
Because of our scale, we offer the most robust Active Directory and Azure Active Directory recovery solutions. Our RMAD portfolio offers backup and recovery at the object and attribute level, the directory level and the operating system level across the entire forest with choices and flexibility for recovery options.
- Choose what works best for your business with recovery methods including Microsoft-compliant bare metal recovery and state data restore to clean OS.
- Restore to any machine with the same operating system version, regardless of its location or type.
- Minimize the risk of reintroducing infected files to recovered domain controller or environment. Reduce file size for faster transfer times from DC to storage location.
- Prioritize the order in which domain controllers are recovered in order to allow critical services to begin their recovery operations faster.
4. Quest has the scale to support sun-to-sun management
When an Active Directory disaster hits, you need to rely on the largest, most stable and scalable partner to get the attention you need. Hundreds of support engineers, R&D folks and product managers supporting RMAD across the globe are available to help you respond to the minor and the major disasters because we know how important Active Directory is to your business.
5. Quest has the resilience to withstand economic downturns and come out stronger
Global economies are in a downturn now because of the coronavirus pandemic. In our 25 year history, we’ve weathered many major economic disasters. We’re not dependent on getting the next customer or the next round of Series funding; we have the financial stability to continue to innovate, develop and work with our customers during these tougher times with an eye on growth.
Quest Hybrid AD Recovery Manager portfolio gives stability, flexibility and choice for your disaster recovery plan
One thing this pandemic is teaching us all is that those essential services we’ve often taken for granted because they just worked, are susceptible to stronger forces. Active Directory is an essential service, like electricity, that needs to work so your business can work.
Don’t get caught unprepared when your Active Directory comes to a crashing halt. Quickly recover with complete AD backup and recovery. See for yourself how Recovery Manager for Active Directory – Disaster Recovery Edition gives you complete coverage to:
- Automate AD backup and recovery at the object and attribute level, the directory level and the operating system level across the entire Forest
- Accelerate a complete restore from any disaster without depending on others
- Rapidly compare a backup, pinpoint differences, and instantly recover the data
- Demonstrate and execute a complete DR Recovery Plan
Download the free trial and experience the experience and support of Quest.
