Mastering Active Directory - Second Edition

Staging the server

By design, it isn't possible to have multiple Azure AD Connect servers sync the same directory data to the same Azure AD Tenant. However, Azure AD Connect supports maintaining a second server in staging mode, which is ideal for HA. A server in staging mode reads data from all connected directories but will not sync it to the Azure AD Tenant. It runs sync jobs as a normal Azure AD Connect server, so in the case of a disaster, it already has the latest data.

In the event of a primary server failure, we can use the Azure AD Connect wizard to fail over to the staging server. This method can be used to replace the existing AD Connect server. We can make all the relevant changes in staging mode, and when everything is ready, ...