Quest Highlights Active Directory Problems Through MOM Console

Published: April 26, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Quest Software this week unveiled a new release of its Spotlight on Active Directory, a performance management tool for use with Microsoft's directory infrastructure. When Spotlight 6.5 ships next week, its new integration with the Microsoft Operation Manager (MOM) Operations Console will help keep administrators aware of the state of Active Directory, which in turn can help prevent problems and service outages.

With Spotlight 6.5, Quest has added monitoring of items such as schema consistency, site configuration best practices, and Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) best practices. Other new features include proactive diagnostic alerts on failed directory and file replication, Domain Name Service (DNS) errors, and time synchronization to the MOM Operations Console, the company says. This release of Spotlight will also populate the MOM 2005 knowledge base with additional information on errors encountered with key Active Directory processes such as File Replication Service (FRS), DNS, and FSMO role placement, the company says.

"It is critical to an organization that Active Directory is always available, so when problems occur, they must be resolved quickly," says Jackson Shaw, senior director of product management at Quest Software. "Busy administrators don't have time to check multiple products or consoles--they want a single source for all Active Directory status, performance, and alerting activity," which is Microsoft's MOM.

Pricing for Spotlight on Active Directory will start at $6 per named user.