Active Roles 7.4.1 - Administration Guide

Centralized Management History storage

With the default replication settings in Active Roles, the Management History data is synchronized between replication partners, along with the Configuration data. Given a large volume of Management History data, this behavior may result in high network traffic and may cause performance degradation of Active Roles in certain scenarios, such as when adding a new partner to the Active Roles replication group. Here you can find instruction on how to eliminate replication of Management History data by implementing a common storage of that data for all replication partners.

Synchronization of the Management History data can be removed from the Active Roles replication process by implementing a common storage of that data for all replication partners. The common storage ensures the consolidation of the portions of Management History data that are generated by different Administration Services, while eliminating the need to synchronize that data between multiple storages.

By default, Active Roles allows you to implement a centralized, common storage for the Management History data. In this way, all the Administration Services that share common configuration use the same Management History storage - the Management History database you created.

Importing data to the new Management History database

You may need to populate the newly created Management History database with your existing Management History data, so that the data remains available to the Active Roles user interfaces after you have configured the Administration Service to use the new Management History database. You can do this by using Active Roles Configuration Center on the computer running the Administration Service.

To import Management History data

1. Start Configuration Center on the computer running the Administration Service, or connect Configuration Center to that computer.

   You can start Configuration Center by selecting Active Roles Configuration Center on the Apps page or Start menu, depending upon the version of your Windows operating system. For detailed instructions, see Running Configuration Center.

2. On the Dashboard page in the Configuration Settings main window, click Manage Settings in the Administration Service area.
3. On the Administration Service page, click Import Management History.
4. On the Source Database page in the Import Management History wizard that appears, specify the database from which you want to import the Management History data (source database):
   1. In the SQL Server box, specify the SQL Server instance that hosts the source database.
   2. In the Database box, specify the name of the source database.
5. Under Connect using, select the appropriate authentication option:
   • If your Windows logon account has sufficient rights to retrieve data from the source database, click Windows authentication.
   • Otherwise, if you have a SQL Server login with sufficient rights, click SQL Server authentication and type the login name and password.
6. Click Next to proceed to the Destination Database page.

   The Destination Database page identifies the Management History database of the Administration Service to which you are going to import data (destination database), and allows you to select an authentication option.

7. On the Destination Database page, under Connect using, select the appropriate authentication option:
   • If your Windows logon account has sufficient rights to write data to the destination database, click Windows authentication.
   • Otherwise, if you have a SQL Server login with sufficient rights, click SQL Server authentication and type the login name and password.
8. Click Next to proceed to the Records to Import page.
9. On the Records to Import page, specify whether you want to import all the data records or a certain range of data records.

   You may choose not to import all the data records as importing a large volume of data may take hours or more. Later, you can import additional data by choosing a different range of data records. During subsequent import sessions, the wizard only imports the data records that were not imported earlier.

   NOTE: The data for unfinished temporal group membership gets imported when the management history data is imported for a selected date range.

10. Click Next, and follow the instructions in the wizard to complete the import operation.

The Import Management History wizard merges the Management History data found in an existing Active Roles database with the data stored in the Management History database. The wizard only adds new data, keeping intact any data that already exists in the Management History database. You may import Management History data at any convenient time after you have configured the Administration Service to use the new Management History database, without being afraid of losing any data.

Viewing change history

The Change History log can be accessed from the Active Roles console, allowing you to quickly examine what changes were made to a given user or group, as well as when it was done and by whom. For example, if someone reset a user’s password via Active Roles, you might use change history to see when and by whom the password was reset.

To examine changes made to a given object, such as a user or group object, right-click it in the Active Roles console and click Change History. By default, the Change History window only displays basic options. You can display more choices by clicking the plus sign (+) in the top-left corner, next to the first column heading.

In the Change History window, you can find the following information:

• Name  The name of the object for which you are examining change history.
• Requested  The date and time that the changes were requested.
• Requested by  The user account that requested the changes.
• Completed  The date and time that the changes were applied.
• Properties  The properties of the object that were changed, including information about the changed property values.
• Status  Indicates whether the requested changes are applied (status COMPLETED) or waiting for approval (status PENDING).

The Change History window also includes the following areas:

• Properties changed during this operation  Information about the object property values that were changed (old values), new values assigned to the properties, and the user account that was used to make the changes.
• Workflow activities and policy actions  Detailed information about all policies and workflows performed by Active Roles when processing the change request.
• Operation details  Additional information on when and by whom the changes were requested.

The Workflow activities and policy actions area displays a report of the policy actions and workflow activity actions. The report organizes the action results into sections, each containing report items specific to a single policy or activity. You can expand the area by clicking its title. To expand a section, click the title of the section. For certain items, the report provides the option to further expand the view and display additional information. The List option displays a list of items, such as user or group properties, affected by the policy or activity. By clicking the Details option, you can examine the policy or activity action result in more detail.

The following topics list the possible sections and report items in the Workflow activities and policy actions area. Each section in the report describes results of the action performed by a certain workflow activity or policy. The report items within the section inform about success or failure of the policy or activity action. In the event of a failure, the report item includes an error description.

Not all the listed sections and items must necessarily be present in a report. An actual report only includes the sections corresponding to the workflow activities and policies that Active Roles performed when processing the operation request.

The following topics elaborate on the report sections and report items you encounter in the Workflow activities and policy actions area:

• Workflow activity report sections
• Policy report items
• Active Roles internal policy report items

Workflow activity report sections

In a Change History report, the report sections specific to workflow activities list all activities that Active Roles executed when processing a given operation request. For each activity, from the respective report section you can determine whether the activity was completed successfully or returned an error. In case of error, the report section provides an error description. For activities requesting changes to directory data (for example, activities that create new objects or modify existing objects), you can examine the requested changes in detail by clicking the Operation ID number in the report section.

This topic lists the contents of the activity report sections you may encounter in a Change History report. Each report section has a header that identifies the name of the activity; the target object of the activity (the object, such as a user, group or computer that the activity is applied to or acts upon); the time that the activity was executed; and the name of the workflow containing that activity. If the activity encountered an error, then the text in the header of the activity report section is red. You can expand the report section by clicking the header to view the body of the report section. The contents of the body varies depending on the type of the activity. In case of an error condition, the body displays an error description.

The remainder of this topic covers the contents of the report section body for each activity type in situations where no errors have occurred.