The process of writing stuff down for others is a great way to get a new perspective even if the others never see it.

@Dashrender said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@Dashrender said:

All that makes me wonder if/when we can have AD in the cloud, either fully or hybrid, and be safe.

That's been available for a while. But the federation limitations remain. There is both traditional AD in the cloud (NTG runs that way) and Azure's cloud AD service. It is that cloud service that is being discussed binding to.

What about doing something crazy like setting up an RODC in Azure or AWS, and put ADFS on that? or skip ADFS altogether and use something like Pertino for logons.

If you're considering this from a DR perspective, a regular DC in a hosted environment would make sense. That way, if your on-premise infrastructure is unavailable, you can carry on as usual. I use AWS for my geographically distributed AD in my test lab, I have a DC on each side of the country.

the purchase of my question is more: What is a good way to have a distributed AD authentication scheme for a spread out network of mobile users? or if not mobile, in a setup where you don't want to pay for an onsite server (though if you're small enough, an on site small HP would be much cheaper in the long run, of course, not as protected as one in the Azure or AWS network)

What are you currently using for VPN?

Azure AD at this point isn't the full AD that you're familiar with. It's a platform to connect applications to. If you want to use Azure and use it for full AD, you'll need to spin up a Windows Server instance on Azure and set it up as a DC.

Wow many answers. thanks. but i haven't tried yet 😞

Thanks,

@IRJ said:

Why not just make two GPOs and apply the User one to the User OU and the Computer one to the Computer OU? I generally separate them because I use User GPOs for certain things and Computer GPOs for other things.

This is the way to go. Keeping GPO and RSOP processing time to a minimum is key. If you have User GPOs applied to computer objects and vice versa, it requires just a bit more processing for the DC to generate RSOP. Keep it simple; keep it clean.

@Bill-Kindle said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@Bill-Kindle we just run a dev instance side by side on the web server.

How quickly can you have a dev environment setup? The referenced installer is done in about 2 minutes, fully functional and if you use it with dropbox, the dev environment follows you anywhere you can access dropbox. Need another one, just run the instlall again and give it a new folder name. Done.

Five minutes or less and it is persistent and can be used by the while team, shown to approvers, etc.

I love simple fixes,

@Nara said:

Yep! It'll be interesting. I have entirely conflicted feelings about that.

I agree. But I also agree they should never have gotten rid of the start menu on non touch devices in the first place. If they wanted to replace it with something like the 'dock' on Mac.. fine (I actually kinda like the look, but have no idea on the function).

I know in IE, you can set Per Site Privacy Actions under Internet Options/Privacy, but haven't played with that.

@Carnival-Boy said:

I just say "Sorry I don't do surveys" and that normally shuts them up.

Hard to know if it shuts them up or not when you immediately hang up 🙂

In Linux it is...

cat /dev/null > filename

Cool. So it was just a device issue.

@IRJ said:

They dont have to have a virus per say.

Sure they do, it's called a meat virus.

Here is a link to a Symantec post on the subject: http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/cryptodefense-cryptolocker-imitator-makes-over-34000-one-month

@BC I tried the Disk Management, Selected the 2TB WD HDD, it was not initialised. Tried to initialise the disk and got access denied error. I hope you read my initial posts, that I tried the same thing using Disk Utility on a MAC and dd command to clean the hard drive.

@nara Tried the diskpart as well but without success. I am actually checking Spinrite if that helps. Will let you know the results soon.

@Nic said:

This is on sale if you want NTFS for Mac: https://deals.macupdate.com/deal/15648?utm_source=macupdate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=paragon

That actually looks interesting. Thanks, @nic!

Looks like a good blog. Bookmarked!

I, on the other hand, will be ready for my update right at that time!

DOA. Sucks, but it happens.