Posted On: Dec 1, 2021
AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory (AWS Managed Microsoft AD) now helps optimize scaling decisions for improved performance and resilience with Amazon CloudWatch. Starting today, AWS Managed Microsoft AD provides domain controller and directory utilization metrics in Amazon CloudWatch for new and existing directories automatically. Analyzing these utilization metrics helps you quantify your average and peak load times to identify the need for additional domain controllers. With this, you can define the number of domain controllers to meet your performance, resilience, and cost requirements.
AWS Managed Microsoft AD provides utilization metrics in Amazon CloudWatch such as CPU, Memory, Disk and Network of domain controllers, as well as AD-specific metrics, such as DNS and Directory reads/writes. Based on the insights provided by these utilization metrics, you can decide to deploy additional domain controllers during peak load periods to improve performance and resilience, or reduce the number of domain controllers off-peak for cost effective operations. Additionally, using Amazon CloudWatch Alarms, you can automate the deployment of additional domain controllers.
For step-by-step instructions on how to configure CloudWatch alarms, guidance on which counters and thresholds to use, and sample automation for adding domain controller, please see the blog post How to Automate AWS Managed Microsoft AD Scaling Based on Utilization Metrics.
This new feature is available in all AWS Regions where AWS Managed Microsoft AD is available (excluding AWS China Regions). To learn more, see the AWS Directory Service Administration Guide and Amazon CloudWatch metrics documentation.