Alexander’s Blog

Microsoft has created a special site for all of us to provide feedback for Microsoft’s AD BPA. There’s also a page for FAQs, along with some other useful links, such as the WS08 R2 Management Forum.

Here are some of the Q&As that are already posted on the AD BPA site.

Q. How is AD BPA installed?
A. AD BPA becomes available once AD DS role is installed on the WS08 R2 Windows Server. BPA UI is available as part of Server Manager UI and exists as one of the tiles in the Server Manager AD DS role home page.

Q. How is BPA different from Management Pack or other Monitoring solutions?
A. BPA focuses on corrective and actionable guidance, once it identifies the root cause of a potential  issue due to some misconfigured AD settings. Apart from reporting on the Symptoms on how the misconfigured AD settings can cause to the customer’s AD environment, it addresses the root cause of the issue and how it can be resolved.

Q. Is AD BPA only available on WS08 R2 DC?
A. Yes, AD BPA is only available from a WS08 R2 DC, and it will validate the AD settings as long as  you have one WS08 R2 DC in your AD forest.

Q. Does AD BPA collect data only from WS08 R2 DC or can it collect data from WS08 and WS03 DCs ?
A. AD BPA will collect as much directory information from the local DC, WS08 R2, on which it is running, except for DNS Server if hosted on different Server. As long there is one WS08 R2 DC in the AD forest, customers will be able to run AD BPA.