How the Active Directory Recovery Agent works

ADRA works with backups of the Windows System State (where Active Directory is installed) and ADAM/AD LDS.

When you back up the Windows System State, the Active Directory is included in the backup job, because Active Directory is a component of Windows System State.

You can also use ADRA to restore individual ADAM/AD LDS objects and attributes. If multiple ADAM/AD LDS instances are backed up, each instance appears under the Active Directory Application Mode node.

ADRA also lets you restore tombstoned objects from the Active Directory Deleted Objects container in the following situations:

Their tombstone lifetimes have not passed.
They have not been purged from the Deleted Objects container.
You are restoring to a Windows Server 2003/2008/XPProfessional x64 Edition system.

Symantec recommends that Active directory and ADAM/AD LDS backups be backed up to a backup-to-disk folder before you back them up to tape. This strategy provides you with shorter backup windows. It also lets you administer Active Directory or ADAM/AD LDS without requiring the individual cataloging of the backed up objects and properties.

When you back up any Windows Active Directory or ADAM/AD LDS application database directly to tape, objects and properties that are added or deleted during the backup will not match the individual objects and properties that are available for restore from the backup set. The back up of the database is a snapshot backup of the live Active Directory or ADAM/AD LDS database and the cataloging of the individual Active Directory or ADAM/AD LDS objects occurs after the snapshot is performed. Since the catalog operation catalogs objects and properties from the live Active Directory or ADAM/AD LDS database, object and property changes can occur after the snapshot was taken.