Sumner County Government gains complete Active Directory visibility with ADAudit Plus

Business challenges

• Limited visibility into domain controllers: Sumner County Government had eight Domain Controllers at different locations but lacked a comprehensive way to monitor and oversee changes across the entire network.
• Need for real-time alerts: The government organization required a solution that could provide real-time alerts for changes made in AD, particularly concerning security and compliance.

The Problem

Before implementing ADAudit Plus, Sumner County Government faced challenges in overseeing the activities on its eight Domain Controllers. “We did not have any way to oversee the 8 Domain Controllers that we had at each location,” said Robert, an IT manager at Sumner County Government. The organization required a solution that could provide real-time alerts for AD changes and streamline the auditing process. They sought a tool that could notify administrators of changes, track user behavior, and provide easy-to-understand reports to help identify and resolve potential issues quickly.

The Solution

According to Tuttle, ADAudit Plus, ManageEngine's AD auditing and reporting solution, proved to be the "perfect solution" for Sumner County Government’s Active Directory auditing needs. With its real-time email alerts, ADAudit Plus enabled the organization to instantly track any changes made to AD, including who made the change and what type of modification occurred. “Any changes that are made send our admins an email instantly, and alerts us of the type of change that was made and who made that change,” Robert explained.

The comprehensive reports provided by ADAudit Plus allowed the IT team to stay on top of their AD environment. “We look over our report every morning,” Robert noted. “It shows login failures, user management, group management, computer management, OU management, GPO management, Domain Policy changes, DNS auditing, etc.” These daily reports gave them an efficient way to track and address issues.

Additionally, the user monitoring capabilities offered by ADAudit Plus were highly effective for tracking and addressing user-related issues. “It’s nice to log into the dashboard and be able to go directly to the service you are wanting to see,” Robert said. The tool also helped Sumner County Government gain better insights into user behavior, especially when investigating issues caused by employees. “It gives us a much better understanding of what is going on and what each user is doing,” said Robert. “Very effective in zeroing in on issues caused by employees.”

Sumner County Government has had an excellent experience with ADAudit Plus overall. Robert emphasized that ADAudit Plus has been “super helpful in providing us with answers without having to search logs” to troubleshoot AD issues. He mentioned that the tool’s quick access to vital information made resolving AD-related problems significantly faster.

About ADAudit Plus

ADAudit Plus is a real-time Active Directory change auditing solution that features file and folder monitoring, plus access and permission change capabilities. With more than 200 event-specific reports and real-time email alerts, it provides in-depth knowledge about changes made to both the content and configurations of Active Directory, Azure AD, and Windows servers. Additionally, ADAudit Plus provides thorough insights on workstation and file server access (including NetApp and EMC). For more information about ADAudit Plus, visit https://www.manageengine.com/products/active-directory-audit/.