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Active Directory Migration in Cloud Migration

Active Directory Migration in Cloud Migration

$249.00
How you learn:
Self-paced • Lifetime updates
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30-day money-back guarantee — no questions asked
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Course access is prepared after purchase and delivered via email
Toolkit Included:
Includes a practical, ready-to-use toolkit containing implementation templates, worksheets, checklists, and decision-support materials used to accelerate real-world application and reduce setup time.
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This curriculum spans the equivalent of a multi-workshop technical engagement, covering the full lifecycle of Active Directory migration from assessment and hybrid design to decommissioning and operational governance, with depth comparable to an internal capability-building program for enterprise identity teams.

Module 1: Assessing On-Premises Active Directory Health and Readiness

  • Inventory and analyze existing domain and forest functional levels to determine compatibility with Azure AD and hybrid identity requirements.
  • Identify and remediate stale user and computer objects, orphaned GPOs, and inconsistent DNS configurations that could block synchronization.
  • Evaluate replication health across domain controllers using tools like REPADMIN and identify latency or failure patterns affecting consistency.
  • Map trust relationships between domains to determine whether they need to be preserved, reconfigured, or decommissioned in the cloud.
  • Assess Group Policy Object (GPO) complexity and determine which policies can be migrated, replaced with Intune, or retired.
  • Document privileged account usage and delegation models to prevent privilege escalation during migration cutover.

Module 2: Designing Hybrid Identity Architecture

  • Select between password hash synchronization, pass-through authentication, and federation based on single sign-on requirements and on-premises infrastructure constraints.
  • Size and deploy Azure AD Connect servers with high availability, including failover clustering or load-balanced virtual machines.
  • Configure filtering rules in Azure AD Connect to exclude test, service, or legacy accounts from synchronization.
  • Implement OU-based scoping to control which on-premises objects are synced to Azure AD, minimizing cloud footprint.
  • Design writeback policies for password reset, device, and group writeback based on operational support models.
  • Integrate on-premises certificate authorities with Azure AD for seamless certificate-based authentication where required.

Module 3: Migrating User and Computer Objects

  • Stagger user migration in phases by department or location to reduce helpdesk impact and enable rollback if needed.
  • Rejoin domain-joined devices to Azure AD or Hybrid Azure AD using provisioning packages or Group Policy startup scripts.
  • Preserve user profile data during migration by coordinating with roaming profiles or UE-V solutions.
  • Resolve UPN mismatches between on-premises and cloud by aligning email domains or configuring alternate login IDs.
  • Handle computer account conflicts by pre-staging devices in Azure AD or cleaning up stale on-premises machine objects.
  • Validate sign-in behavior across Windows, macOS, and mobile devices post-migration using targeted pilot groups.

Module 4: Managing Group Policy and Conditional Access

  • Convert high-priority Group Policy settings to Microsoft Intune configuration profiles, prioritizing security baselines and compliance policies.
  • Define Conditional Access policies that enforce MFA and device compliance for cloud resources while maintaining on-premises access.
  • Test and deploy sign-in risk-based Conditional Access policies using Azure AD Identity Protection in monitoring mode first.
  • Replace legacy GPOs enforcing software installation with Intune Win32 app deployments and dependency chains.
  • Configure named locations in Azure AD to reflect corporate network ranges and integrate with on-premises firewalls.
  • Implement session controls in Conditional Access to restrict application access based on device compliance state.

Module 5: Securing and Hardening the Hybrid Environment

  • Enable Azure AD Connect Health to monitor sync service performance and receive proactive alerts for anomalies.
  • Configure least-privilege permissions for Azure AD Connect service accounts using dedicated admin forest accounts.
  • Rotate Azure AD Connect application credentials and encryption keys on a defined schedule to meet compliance requirements.
  • Disable legacy authentication protocols in Azure AD and enforce modern authentication across all clients.
  • Enable and audit sign-in logs for synchronized accounts to detect unauthorized access or suspicious activity patterns.
  • Implement Privileged Identity Management (PIM) for cloud roles and integrate with on-premises Just Enough Administration (JEA) models.

Module 6: Migrating Domain Controllers and Decommissioning On-Premises AD

  • Demote and remove domain controllers in reverse replication order to prevent USN rollback and metadata corruption.
  • Transfer FSMO roles to remaining domain controllers before final decommissioning and validate successful seizure capability.
  • Update internal DNS zones to remove references to decommissioned domain controllers and prevent client resolution failures.
  • Reconfigure applications and services relying on LDAP binds to use cloud identity endpoints or alternative authentication methods.
  • Archive Active Directory database backups and configuration documentation for compliance and disaster recovery purposes.
  • Reclaim IP space, VM resources, and hardware associated with retired domain controllers in coordination with network and infrastructure teams.

Module 7: Monitoring, Governance, and Ongoing Operations

  • Establish log aggregation pipelines from Azure AD, Intune, and on-premises AD to a centralized SIEM for correlation.
  • Define ownership and approval workflows for Azure AD group membership, particularly for dynamic and privileged groups.
  • Implement lifecycle management for guest users using Azure AD External Identities and access reviews.
  • Configure automated alerts for anomalous bulk user creation, attribute changes, or unexpected sync errors.
  • Conduct quarterly access certification campaigns for cloud roles and hybrid administrative privileges.
  • Update runbooks and incident response procedures to reflect new cloud-first identity workflows and escalation paths.

Module 8: Handling Complex Scenarios and Edge Cases

  • Manage multi-forest migrations by deploying multiple Azure AD Connect instances with proper filtering and conflict resolution.
  • Resolve object ID mismatches when merging previously separate Azure AD tenants using hard match processes.
  • Support legacy applications requiring NTLM or Kerberos by deploying Azure AD Application Proxy with pre-authentication.
  • Migrate on-premises PKI integrations to use hybrid certificate trust for Azure AD joined devices.
  • Address time synchronization drift between on-premises domain controllers and Azure VMs to prevent Kerberos failures.
  • Plan for disaster recovery by defining backup identity sources and fallback authentication methods during cloud outages.
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