The Blackbird Group is raffling two license packages of Blackbird recovery for AD, a sophisticated Activate Directory backup tool. The value of each license is $1,800 USD and allows you to back up an Active Directory with 500 users. You will find more information about how to take part in this contest at the end of the article.

Blackbird recovery is a module of the Blackbird Management Suite, which consists of Blackbird auditor for AD (real-time auditing for Active Directory), Blackbird auditor for Windows File System (real-time file system auditing), Blackbird privilege explorer for Windows File System (access rights reporting), Blackbird protector (protection against AD modifications), and Blackbird privilege manager (workflow based management of AD privileges).

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In my last post, I gave you an overview of the essential benefits of Blackbird recovery. Today, I will describe the Active Directory backup tool’s architecture and its main functions.

Data handler

The diagram above gives you an overview of Blackbird recovery’s architecture. As you can see, you have to install an agent, the Blackbird Data Handler, on all your domain controllers to enable the collection of a continuous change log. This agent is not only for Blackbird continuous recovery but for all the other modules of the Blackbird Management Suite. The agent collects the data and directly stores it into a Microsoft SQL Server (or SQL Server Express) database.

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Blackbird recovery offers two types of Active Directory backups: audits and scheduled backups. The audit-based backups are for continuous data protection (CDP), and scheduled backups are backup tasks that run at configurable times. That way, Blackbird recovery offers the advantages of both backup technologies—CDP and scheduled backups.

Continuous data protection for Active Directory

If you require a more recent backup, you want to determine the point in time of the backup more precisely. In most cases, you will just need the last available state; with real-time CDP, this is the state right before the corresponding directory objects have been modified.

To enable CDP you will need to deploy a data handler to every domain controller to capture all of the changes from a continuous change log to rollback unwanted changes.

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Now that you have a general idea about the architecture and capabilities of Blackbird recovery, I will give you an overview of how you can restore objects and attributes with the Active Directory backup software.

Recover deleted Active Directory objects

Blackbird recovery offers three ways to restore deleted AD objects: the Recycle Bin in the Blackbird Management Suite console, the Recycle Bin in the Active Directory Users and Computers interface (ADUC), and through the Deleted Objects tab of the object properties in ADUC or right clicking on the object in ADUC.

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