Here, we will discuss how to update Azure AD Connect or the methods to upgrade the current version of Azure AD Connect to the latest version. It is always suggested to keep the updated version.
Update Azure AD connect
There are three ways to upgrade the Azure ad Connect version
- Automatic upgrade
- In-place upgrade
- Swing Migration
Automatic upgrade
It is always a better option to enable the Automatic upgrade option, which will always upgrade to the current version automatically. It is enabled by default for express installations and DirSync upgrades.
The below PowerShell cmdlet can check the current status of the Automatic upgrade
PS C:\windows\system32> Get-ADSyncAutoUpgrade
It has four states, i.e., Enabled (Automatic upgrade feature is already enabled), Suspended (The system is not eligible to enable Automatic upgrade), and Disabled (Automatic upgrade feature is disabled on the system).
With the help of the Set-ADSyncAutoUpgrade PowerShell command, you can change the status between Enabled and Disabled.
In-place upgrade
You can use this method when you have a single server to upgrade the installation on the same server. It works for moving from Azure AD Sync or Azure AD Connect.
It is a choice when you only have a server containing less than 100,000 objects.
This process ensures that the new configuration is applied to all existing objects and might take a few hours, depending on the number of objects.
So it is suggested to perform the in-place upgrade during a weekend.
It will check if there are no changes to the OOB configuration with the new Azure AD Connect release, and then it will start a normal import/sync. But if you have made any changes to the OOB sync rules in the out-of-box, these rules are set back to the default configuration after the upgrade.
Swing Migration
You can choose the swing migration when there are many objects in the system or you have a complex deployment.
We can also use swing migration when you are planning to make substantial changes to your configuration, and we want to test them before we publish them to the cloud.
For this method, there is a need for two servers
- Active serve
- Staging server
Active production load will be there on the Active server, and the new release or configuration will be stored on the staging server. When it’s fully ready, this server is converted to the active and previous active server, where the old version or configuration installed is converted to the staging server and is upgraded.
Ensure that both your active server and staging server use the same version. If you use Azure AD Connect on both servers and planning, make only a configuration change. If you upgrade from Azure AD Sync, these servers have different versions.
This is how to update Azure AD connect whenever you require it.
You may also like following the articles below
Conclusion
This tutorial discussed how to upgrade Azure AD Connect. Thanks for reading this article !!!
I am Rajkishore, and I am a Microsoft Certified IT Consultant. I have over 14 years of experience in Microsoft Azure and AWS, with good experience in Azure Functions, Storage, Virtual Machines, Logic Apps, PowerShell Commands, CLI Commands, Machine Learning, AI, Azure Cognitive Services, DevOps, etc. Not only that, I do have good real-time experience in designing and developing cloud-native data integrations on Azure or AWS, etc. I hope you will learn from these practical Azure tutorials. Read more.
