Active Roles 7.2 - Administration Guide

Change Tracking log configuration

One more configuration setting for Management History determines the size of the Change Tracking log. The log stores information about requests to change directory data, one record per request. Each record includes information about the changes to a certain object that were made in accordance with a certain change request.

You can configure the maximum number of records by managing properties of the Change Tracking Log Configuration object, located in the Configuration/Server Configuration container.

On the Log Settings tab in the Properties dialog box for that object, you can select one of the following options:

• All requests that occurred during last <number> days  Information about change requests is written to the log so that new requests replace those that are older than the specified number of days.
• This total number of most recent requests  The log stores not more than the specified number of change requests. When the limit is reached, each new request to make changes to directory data replaces the oldest request in the log.
• This number of most recent requests per object  For every object, the log stores at most the specified number of change requests. When the limit is reached for a certain object, each new request to make changes to the object replaces the oldest request related to that object. The total number of requests depends on the number of objects that are modified via Active Roles.

By default, the Change Tracking log is configured to store information about requests that occurred within last 30 days. Information about change requests is written to the log so that new requests replace those that are older than 30 days. If you increase this number, do it carefully. Increasing this number significantly increases the size of the log. If you are planning to change this setting, you should first review the Considerations and best practices section earlier in this chapter.

On the Log Record Size tab, you can choose from the options that allow you to reduce the size of the Change Tracking log by logging detailed information about a limited number of change requests, having only basic information about the other change requests logged and thus included in the reports. If the log record of a given change request contains detailed information, then the report on that request provides information about all changes made, along with all policies and workflows performed, by Active Roles when processing the request. Otherwise, the report provides information only about the changes to the object properties made in accordance with the request. Although storing only basic log records results in fewer details in the reports, doing so may considerably decrease the size of the Management History database. The following options are available:

• All requests  The Change Tracking log contains detailed information about all requests stored in the log.
• Requests that occurred during last <number> days  Detailed information about requests is written to the log so that new requests with detailed information replace those that are older than the specified number of days.
• This number of most recent requests  The log stores not more than the specified number of requests containing detailed information. When the limit is reached, each new request with detailed information replaces the oldest request in the log.
• Don’t log detailed information about any requests  The Change Tracking log contains only basic information about all requests stored in the log.

Replication of Management History data

By default, the Management History data is stored in the Active Roles configuration databases. So, if you have Active Roles replication configured as described in the Configuring replication section later in this document, the Management History data is replicated between Administration Services along with the configuration data. Given a large volume of the Management History data, this may cause considerable network traffic.

You can turn off replication of Management History data so as to reduce network traffic. However, doing so causes each database server to maintain a separate Management History data store. The result is that you can use Management History to examine the changes that were made only through the Administration Services that use the same database as the Administration Service you are connected to.

To sum up, the implications of turning off replication of Management History data are as follows:

• The reports produced by the Change History or User Activity command include information only about the changes that were made using a certain group of Administration Services (those Services that share a common database).

  As the Active Roles console or Web Interface automatically selects the Service to connect to, you may encounter different reports for the same target object or user account during different connection sessions.

• The features of Active Roles such as Approval Workflow, Temporal Group Memberships, and Undo Deprovisioning may not work as expected. Some operations that rely on those features may not be processed or displayed in a consistent way by client interfaces connected to different Administration Services.

  Active Roles uses the Management History storage to hold approval, temporal group membership, and deprovisioning tasks. Without synchronizing information between Management History storages, such a task created by one of the Administration Services may not be present on other Administration Services. As a result, behavior of the Active Roles console or Web Interface varies depending on the chosen Administration Service.

Turning off replication of Management History data has no effect on replication of the other data pertinent to the configuration of Active Roles. Only the Management History-related portion of the configuration database is excluded from Active Roles replication.

The instructions on how to turn off replication of Management History data depend upon whether Active Roles replication is already configured.

Replication is not yet configured

When initially configuring Active Roles replication, you can ensure that the Management History data will not participate in Active Roles replication by assigning the Publisher role as follows (for definitions of the replication roles, see Configuring replication later in this document):

1. With the Active Roles console, connect to the Administration Service whose SQL Server you want to hold the Publisher role.
2. In the console tree, expand Configuration | Server Configuration and select the Configuration Databases container.
3. In the details pane, right-click the database, and click Promote.
4. Wait while the console performs the Promote operation.
5. In the console tree, under Server Configuration, select the Management History Databases container.
6. In the details pane, right-click the database, and click Demote.
7. Wait while the console completes the Demote operation.

Then, you can configure Active Roles replication by using the Active Roles console as described in the Configuring replication section later in this document: Use the Add Replication Partner command on the database in the Configuration Databases container to add Subscribers to the Publisher you have configured.

Replication is already configured

This section outlines the instructions on how to turn off replication of Management History data in case that Active Roles replication is already configured as described in the Configuring replication section later in this document. You need to first delete all Subscribers for Management History data, and then demote the Publisher for Management History data. This only stops replication of Management History data, leaving the other replication functions intact.

To turn off replication of Management History data

1. With the Active Roles console, connect to the Administration Service whose SQL Server holds the Publisher role.
2. In the console tree, expand Configuration | Server Configuration, and select the Management History Databases container.
3. Use the Delete command on each of the Subscriber databases to delete all Subscribers in the Management History Databases container.
4. Right-click the Publisher database, and click Demote.
5. Wait while the console completes the Demote operation.