I’m moving more and more services to the cloud and only have a handful of Windows servers I need onsite. Is it worth it to run Active Directory for just for a few servers? If I’m not using Active Directory, does that mean I’m managing local passwords for each server or are there alternatives?
Note: all client devices will be on Azure AD and will not need a local server.
Active Directory helps with centralized user management & controls, so the question is do you need those features?
Why wouldn’t you put the servers on Azure AD? And yes, you will be managing individual passwords for each server if you don’t have a domain controller in place.
I don’t think servers can join to Azure AD/ Intune the same way client Windows 10 computers do.
Yeah, I guess that’s what I have to decide. There’s only two tech employees in so we would just have to keep local servers organized.
I’m also looking at Jumpcloud. It could handle Linux servers as well.
Hey Kyle, did you ever go with Jumpcloud? I am also wondering if there are any FOSS domain controller solutions for ppl who just want OpenNAS + firewall + some type of easy access control/authentication.
@Khonseus No, I haven’t looked at it yet, but thanks for reminding me. I’m going to try to install JumpCloud in my home lab this weekend.
From what I understand (but full disclosure, have never actually checked…) you can now join windows servers to azure AD. You were correct that you could not but I’ve been told in a couple of places that you can. As I say, totally not tested but might be worth checking.