How To Completely Migrate Active directory of On-Prem Domain "abc.local" to a Domain controller in Azure having new domain "xyz.co.uk", so I can manage Active directory from Azure DC only. And decom the On Prem Domain controllers

Question

Hi Guys,
I have an on-prem environment running domain controller with domain "abc.local" and I want to migrate all the contents of this DC to The Azure VM DC which is running a different domain "xyz.co.uk". I couldn't find any documentation that would completely replicate/merge the on-prem objects including group policies to the Azure domain.
There was ADDS which came close to achieving this but it can only be used to replicate on an existing domain, not a different domain.
Also, I have a site-to-site connection established so Azure VM DC and On-Prem DC can communicate with each other.

Can anyone suggest me the procedure to migrate this "abc.local" AD to Azure DC with new domain "xyz.co.uk"

Answer 1

Hi

you won't find a direct "replicate/merge" procedure because you are essentially trying to migrate between two different Active Directory (AD) domains.

Depending on the complexity of your abc.local domain and the servers/services you have running that have a dependency on it, this is going to be a complex process. At a high level, the steps to follow are below but you would need to plan this very carefully:

• Create a trust relationship between the two domains.
• Use Active Directory Migration Tool (ADMT) to migrate user accounts, groups, and computer accounts.
• Migrate SID history to maintain access to resources.
• Use Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) to back up GPOs from the source domain and restore them to the target domain.
• Update DNS and DHCP Configurations.
• Reconfigure Applications and Services.
• Join the client computers and servers to the new domain.

Hope this helps,

Thanks

Michael Durkan

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