Manually entering computers and users, particularly for a large-scale operation, is an incredibly time-consuming process. For this reason, Alter-Ego offers the ability to import data from file or from an existing Active Directory (AD) database. This article will discuss how to import computer and OU (group) information from Active Directory to facilitate the setup of your migration.
The conosle must be able to resolve an Active Directory domain controller (DC) by name and contact it through the network. An active user account in the AD domain to be imported is also required to authenticate against the DC. This means that the console PC does not have to be part of the domain to be imported.
To perform the import:
The import process will report any errors encountered while importing.
A message is displayed on a successful import.
All OUs in the source domain will be imported as groups. Computer records will be created in their respective computer accounts' groups (OUs). Unfortunately AD does not provide a standard means to map multiple user accounts to their respective computers. For this reason, users cannot be imported through the Import from Active Directory process. Users can be imported from a file after importing the computers from AD.
Multiple AD or file imports can be brought into the same tree provided that there are no duplicate destination user names. If imported computer names match existing computer names, the source/destination user pairs will be added to the existing computers in the tree.
Settings cannot be imported through this means. Settings can only be created using the Easy Setup Wizard or by manually setting them. Settings can only be loaded from an exsiting Alter-Ego saved file.