Metallic Active Directory: Enhancements, service changes, and an exclusive offer

At Commvault, we understand that Active Directory sits at the core of your identity and access management infrastructure and is a primary attack vector for bad actors. On December 1, 2023, we are taking the first of several steps towards providing expanded protection for this essential asset in the form of enhanced object and attribute level recovery for both Active Directory and Azure AD (now Microsoft Entra ID). 

The key new features released on December 1 will make it easier for you to identify the scope of a disaster and recover or roll back from it as quickly as possible. The enhanced protection includes: 

• Accelerated recovery of deleted and changed objects by comparing all objects and attributes between backups. 
• Recovery of Group Policy Objects, including their security, links, and settings. 
• Recovery of Azure AD conditional access policies and roles. 

• Rollback of overwritten or corrupted attributes across many objects at once. 
• More frequent backups of AD, ensuring it is always possible to restore a recent copy. 

To ensure the highest level of AD protection, we will also transition Metallic® Active Directory Backup from a free subscription to a paid offering starting December 1, 2023. 

If you are presently protecting your Active Directory or Azure Active Directory environment with Metallic® Active Directory Backup, you will automatically gain access to the enhanced capabilities described above at no additional cost until June 1, 2024. No action is required on your part, and your scheduled backups will not be disrupted in any way. Starting on December 1, you will have complete access to the expanded functionality in appreciation of your ongoing business. 

If you are not currently protecting Active Directory, you can configure the backup of one Active Directory domain or Azure Active Directory tenant before December 1, 2023, and you will automatically gain free access to these enhanced capabilities until June 1, 2024, with no strings attached. To begin the protection of Active Directory today and gain access to the enhanced protection capabilities through June, open the Metallic portal and click Configure under the Active Directory tile in the Service Catalog.

After June 1, 2024, it will be necessary to purchase a subscription to ensure continued access to the Active Directory service.

Interactive, domain-wide AD comparisons 

To make an informed decision as to what objects to restore or roll back, you need a complete report of all changes that have recently occurred in AD. Our new comparisons do just this – they compare all objects and attributes from a backup of your choosing to the current state of AD or another selected backup – and itemize any objects that were deleted or whose attributes have changed. Rather than doing the investigative work yourself, our comparisons will tell you exactly what happened in AD and allow you to interact with the report to search and filter to narrow the results to the objects that require recovery. Most importantly, you can restore the objects directly from the report, eliminating the need to switch between different views and workflows and minimizing downtime or disruption. 

Comparisons can automatically scan for all changes in AD between two points in time or focus on particular areas in AD to speed up results. The results for every comparison are saved so you and your colleagues can review them anytime.