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Amazon Directory Service

Amazon Directory Service

Managed Microsoft Active Directory in the Amazon Web Services Cloud

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Overview

Amazon Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory, also known as Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD, enables you to use a highly available managed Microsoft Active Directory in the Amazon Web Services Cloud. Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD helps you use Windows workloads in the Amazon Web Services Cloud with actual Microsoft Active Directory (AD). You have the flexibility to keep your identities in your existing Microsoft AD or create and manage identities in your Amazon Web Services managed directory. With Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD, your migrated AD-aware applications can use Windows integrated authentication. Users can also use their Microsoft AD credentials to sign in to Amazon Web Services applications and services. Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD is available in standard and enterprise editions to scale to your size and performance requirements.

Benefits

  • Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD makes it easy to migrate Active Directory–dependent, on-premises applications and workloads to the Amazon Web Services Cloud. With Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD, you can seamlessly run infrastructure across your own data center and Amazon Web Services without synchronizing or replicating data from your existing Active Directory to the Amazon Web Services Cloud.

  • Take advantage of actual Microsoft Active Directory to manage your users, groups, and devices. Use familiar Active Directory administration tools and Active Directory features, such as Group Policy objects (GPOs), domain trusts, fine-grain password policies, and Kerberos-based single sign-on. You can also delegate administrative tasks and authorize access using Active Directory security groups.

  • Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD is built on highly available, Amazon Web Services-managed infrastructure. Each directory is deployed across multiple Availability Zones, and monitoring automatically detects and replaces domain controllers that fail. In addition, data replication and automated daily snapshots are configured for you. You do not have to install software, and Amazon Web Services handles all patching and software updates.

  • Share a single directory for all your Active Directory-aware Amazon EC2 instances and Amazon RDS for SQL Server instances. Using Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD helps avoid the complexity of replicating and synchronizing data across multiple directories.

  • Easily extend your existing Active Directory to the Amazon Web Services Cloud by using Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD as a resource domain. With Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD, you can extend your existing Group Policies to your cloud resources, and let users log in with their existing enterprise credentials.

  • Join your computers, laptops, and printers to a managed Active Directory domain. Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD provides you the option to administer your on-premises users, groups, applications, and systems without the complexity of running and maintaining an on-premises, highly available Active Directory.

Use Cases

Provide Your On-Premises AD Users Quick Access to Amazon Web Services

Using an AD trust with Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD keeps your on-premises and cloud directories separated while allowing all your users access to Amazon Web Services as needed. One and two way (incoming, outgoing and bi-directional) external and forest trusts can be used to establish connectivity for your on-premises users to access the Amazon Web Services Management Console or Amazon Web Services managed services such as  Amazon RDS for  SQL Server,  Oracle,  PostgreSQL,  MySQL. To learn more, see the  Admin Guide.

Leverage Integrations With Amazon RDS and Amazon FSx

Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD allows your apps and services to better integrate and utilize Amazon FSx for Windows File Server and Amazon Web Services Managed database services, such as  Amazon RDS for  SQL Server,  Oracle,  PostgreSQL, and  MySQL. You can also share a single Amazon Web Services Managed Microsoft AD across Amazon Web Services accounts and VPCs. To learn more, see the  Admin Guide.