SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory
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@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
If you have questions unrelated or loosely related to AD like "what are good ways to replace Windows Server components in a Windows desktop world while retaining tight control and visibility of individual workstations", that should be its own thread.
yeah - we need a more useful thread like "if even needed, and not going BYOD, how do I replace all the components that go along with Windows AD (i.e. directory services, workstation settings management).
Yes, which is a great discussion and we should have it. You should write up the goals for a business, real or contrived, and then we work backwards from the goals to find what we feel would be good approaches for it.
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@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
So literally the most common answer is "how do I replace X" component from the Windows Server ecosystem is truly "you don't."
How do you replace the functionality of auto deployed printers - you don't, you make the users add them manually when needed... yeah that sounds awesome.
No - of course, you're going to tell me, uh, duh of course not, we use powershell to push it out to all the workstations. or an RMM, but you see, those are things that REPLACED powershell. The only not replacement is the user doing it themselves, or the IT staff visiting the workstations doing it for the users (physically or remotely).
Sure, but if you have a deployment script for a printer, what does that take? A couple seconds per machine? And it responds that it worked or failed, unlike GPO where you just trust that it worked. It's like Dr. Evil putting Austin Powers in the pit with the sharks or the lava. Of course he is likely to die, but there is a chance that your GPO will escape and thwart your printer plans. Even if deploying thousands of printers, doing so from script is pretty trivial as long as you have a text list of your machines (you likely would.)
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@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
Toss in a situation where many users must be able to use nearly any computer in the office at any time - and now what? really - how do you manage that?
100 desktops, 100 users, and they play musical charges daily - now what?
Everything they access of value is cloud based, so you only care about authentication to that service not authentication to the local system.
You can prevent users from storing files locally on OD for example and in that case if their workstation is compromised none of the data is sensitive.
But basically - you are saying - BYOD all the things, and just not give a shit about the end device at all...
But you still have regulations, the reason you're running an SIEM.Not BYOD and have standard builds with restricted permissions, but you dont really push anything because they are just a basic OS that lets you access resources. You let them update on their own.
I could definitely see this working in a 1 to 1 situation because there would be so little to manage.. and once the user is setup, they aren't likely going to need much IT support. But in a shared environment, it gets stickier.
It seems to work pretty well from what I've seen. And the cost to 1:1 often is small compared to other costs of management. So when you get close, it often pans out. This style also allows for heterogenous environments really easily.
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
In a greenfield, it's pretty darn easy. Easier, in lots of cases.
Right, but nobody ever mentioned greenfield, but seems to be the basis of your stances.
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
But basically - you are saying - BYOD all the things, and just not give a shit about the end device at all...
But you still have regulations, the reason you're running an SIEM.BYOD isn't the same. It's an option, surely, but BYOD is a leap to a different discussion. That's about device ownership, not about device management.
When I worked at a big California non-profit, they didn't use AD, SMB, GPO or any of those things. Nor did they use BYOD. Nor did they have central user management. They just handed out laptops, that they owned, and they had some MDM to monitor where they were and push out apps. But they didn't manage users or system settings. Just not needed. That was for 250-300 users. And it worked great. And you could seat swap by taking your laptop with you, rather than using desktops (not my favourite, but it worked.)
So using IRJ's approach, but with zero BYOD.
Is there a name for what you described? We kinda need one - especially if you're starting to see this as a more and more common approach, where the device is mostly user managed, except where MDM steps in.
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
If you have questions unrelated or loosely related to AD like "what are good ways to replace Windows Server components in a Windows desktop world while retaining tight control and visibility of individual workstations", that should be its own thread.
yeah - we need a more useful thread like "if even needed, and not going BYOD, how do I replace all the components that go along with Windows AD (i.e. directory services, workstation settings management).
Yes, which is a great discussion and we should have it. You should write up the goals for a business, real or contrived, and then we work backwards from the goals to find what we feel would be good approaches for it.
done
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@Obsolesce said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
In a greenfield, it's pretty darn easy. Easier, in lots of cases.
Right, but nobody ever mentioned greenfield, but seems to be the basis of your stances.
Doesn't need to be mentioned (although it was.) The question is "do you really need AD", and the answer is no, in greenfield very commonly and in brownfield commonly enough, AD is unnecessary. If there is a new, very niche, brownfield only scenario being assumed, it needs to be mentioned. Because otherwise, both are considered.
The question was never "is AD ever useful". Of course it is, a lot of the time. But almost exclusively in brownfields. You are looking at it in reverse. If you want to isolate an open field (haha) discussion to only brownfields, that has to be mentioned.
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@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
But basically - you are saying - BYOD all the things, and just not give a shit about the end device at all...
But you still have regulations, the reason you're running an SIEM.BYOD isn't the same. It's an option, surely, but BYOD is a leap to a different discussion. That's about device ownership, not about device management.
When I worked at a big California non-profit, they didn't use AD, SMB, GPO or any of those things. Nor did they use BYOD. Nor did they have central user management. They just handed out laptops, that they owned, and they had some MDM to monitor where they were and push out apps. But they didn't manage users or system settings. Just not needed. That was for 250-300 users. And it worked great. And you could seat swap by taking your laptop with you, rather than using desktops (not my favourite, but it worked.)
So using IRJ's approach, but with zero BYOD.
Is there a name for what you described? We kinda need one - especially if you're starting to see this as a more and more common approach, where the device is mostly user managed, except where MDM steps in.
Unmanaged? Default? It's just the baseline, more or less. It's a tough one to put a name on because it's the lack of things, rather than the presence of things, that makes it what it is.
It's easy enough to describe... non-BYOD, snowflake managed, end points.
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
Toss in a situation where many users must be able to use nearly any computer in the office at any time - and now what? really - how do you manage that?
100 desktops, 100 users, and they play musical charges daily - now what?
Everything they access of value is cloud based, so you only care about authentication to that service not authentication to the local system.
You can prevent users from storing files locally on OD for example and in that case if their workstation is compromised none of the data is sensitive.
But basically - you are saying - BYOD all the things, and just not give a shit about the end device at all...
But you still have regulations, the reason you're running an SIEM.Not BYOD and have standard builds with restricted permissions, but you dont really push anything because they are just a basic OS that lets you access resources. You let them update on their own.
I could definitely see this working in a 1 to 1 situation because there would be so little to manage.. and once the user is setup, they aren't likely going to need much IT support. But in a shared environment, it gets stickier.
It seems to work pretty well from what I've seen. And the cost to 1:1 often is small compared to other costs of management. So when you get close, it often pans out. This style also allows for heterogenous environments really easily.
Definitely not a fan of working on a laptop and only a laptop - but I suppose you could deploy monitors and keybaords to every desk, and you just hook up where ever you are working that day.
They more or less did that at Drop box when I visited there 4 years ago. Just monitors - they still had to type on the laptop keyboard.. ug.
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@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
Toss in a situation where many users must be able to use nearly any computer in the office at any time - and now what? really - how do you manage that?
100 desktops, 100 users, and they play musical charges daily - now what?
Everything they access of value is cloud based, so you only care about authentication to that service not authentication to the local system.
You can prevent users from storing files locally on OD for example and in that case if their workstation is compromised none of the data is sensitive.
But basically - you are saying - BYOD all the things, and just not give a shit about the end device at all...
But you still have regulations, the reason you're running an SIEM.Not BYOD and have standard builds with restricted permissions, but you dont really push anything because they are just a basic OS that lets you access resources. You let them update on their own.
I could definitely see this working in a 1 to 1 situation because there would be so little to manage.. and once the user is setup, they aren't likely going to need much IT support. But in a shared environment, it gets stickier.
It seems to work pretty well from what I've seen. And the cost to 1:1 often is small compared to other costs of management. So when you get close, it often pans out. This style also allows for heterogenous environments really easily.
Definitely not a fan of working on a laptop and only a laptop - but I suppose you could deploy monitors and keybaords to every desk, and you just hook up where ever you are working that day.
They more or less did that at Drop box when I visited there 4 years ago. Just monitors - they still had to type on the laptop keyboard.. ug.
Same, I hated that about the environment. They spent a fortune to overcome the laptop crap of it. But it remained crap.
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@Dashrender I think the key name to what you want is "snowflake managed". The fleet isn't seen as a uniform body, but more a congregation of workstations.
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender I think the key name to what you want is "snowflake managed". The fleet isn't seen as a uniform body, but more a congregation of workstations.
I can dig that...
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
And is it really GPO if you're using Salt/Ansible/RMM to set registry keys, and not the GPO tool and the XML files it generates? I mean the end goal is the same, sure, but the tech to get there is slightly different - I think.
No, it is definitely not GPO if you are using PS to set the registry. That highlights why GPO is often not to be maintained, because there are other, often better ways to handle it. GPO isn't the end all of value. That said, though, you can use Salt / Ansible / PowerShell to do set GPOs, or to bypass them. Most people use the GPO approach because of momentum of conversations like this - people get convinced that they need GPO, so they want tools to automate GPO rather than starting from the goal and figuring out how to achieve it.
There are quite often cases where computer settings, policies, controls, etc. (whatever they be, security, etc...) need to be centrally managed, monitored, finely targeted, etc. AD does some, but not all. GPO is not the most featureful tool for this (I'm purposely not saying best), as well as other tools are not. Many of the won't do shit if they are "mobile" devices, meaning users really never leave their laptops at work. MDM is really where things are going, seriously. Out of like 10k computers, I'd say 98% of them are laptops, and are "mobile", or at least not on "the" LAN. I can imagine this will only get bigger as time goes. So really, centrally managed AD DS GPO is on it's way out, and is being replaced by MDM policies, with great compliance policies and reporting baked right in.
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@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
How do you replace the functionality of auto deployed printers - you don't, you make the users add them manually when needed... yeah that sounds awesome.
You don't, you use follow-me-printing and only have "one" printer to install on a system. User takes their card (or something) and walk up to any printer, scan it, print their shit.
Installing that one printer can be done so many automated ways.
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@Obsolesce said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
How do you replace the functionality of auto deployed printers - you don't, you make the users add them manually when needed... yeah that sounds awesome.
You don't, you use follow-me-printing and only have "one" printer to install on a system. User takes their card (or something) and walk up to any printer, scan it, print their shit.
Installing that one printer can be done so many automated ways.
not even ever going to happen in the SMB anytime soon.
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@Obsolesce said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
And is it really GPO if you're using Salt/Ansible/RMM to set registry keys, and not the GPO tool and the XML files it generates? I mean the end goal is the same, sure, but the tech to get there is slightly different - I think.
No, it is definitely not GPO if you are using PS to set the registry. That highlights why GPO is often not to be maintained, because there are other, often better ways to handle it. GPO isn't the end all of value. That said, though, you can use Salt / Ansible / PowerShell to do set GPOs, or to bypass them. Most people use the GPO approach because of momentum of conversations like this - people get convinced that they need GPO, so they want tools to automate GPO rather than starting from the goal and figuring out how to achieve it.
There are quite often cases where computer settings, policies, controls, etc. (whatever they be, security, etc...) need to be centrally managed, monitored, finely targeted, etc. AD does some, but not all. GPO is not the most featureful tool for this (I'm purposely not saying best), as well as other tools are not. Many of the won't do shit if they are "mobile" devices, meaning users really never leave their laptops at work. MDM is really where things are going, seriously. Out of like 10k computers, I'd say 98% of them are laptops, and are "mobile", or at least not on "the" LAN. I can imagine this will only get bigger as time goes. So really, centrally managed AD DS GPO is on it's way out, and is being replaced by MDM policies, with great compliance policies and reporting baked right in.
I completely agree with this - I am surprised that MS didn't come out with a better solution for this ages ago. That whole Direct Connect or whatever it was called - phone home VPN solution they have for Enterprise edition only - what a kluge.
That said - while my environment is 80% laptops, 80% of those stay onsite 100% of the time, it's that other 20% that are a problem - and most of those I actually came to the conclusion that Scott mentioned - Snowflake managed - was the way to go. they aren't on the domain - they are single user only devices, so they have a local account for that user, a local admin account for me - and ScreenConnect for when they need assistance.
All non windows apps are installed using Chocolatey and update automatically, Windows updates are set to install automatically (yet like all windows, that still fails/confuses users and systems end up not updated)...
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@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
Toss in a situation where many users must be able to use nearly any computer in the office at any time - and now what? really - how do you manage that?
100 desktops, 100 users, and they play musical charges daily - now what?
Everything they access of value is cloud based, so you only care about authentication to that service not authentication to the local system.
You can prevent users from storing files locally on OD for example and in that case if their workstation is compromised none of the data is sensitive.
why would you even have OD if you can prevent local storage of files?
That statement makes no sense. If you prevent local storage you have to have a service like OD to access files.
Thanks for pulling a scott and not reading the followup where I answered my own question - but left it there anyways for other people who might have had the same thought I originally did.
that said - the file is still saved locally - in the cache of OD. I don't believe you can work locally with a non cached file.
I'm prepared to be wrong that account though if you have an article from MS stating as much.Why would you need to use Desktop Office? Why not use Office Online?
Because it gives you a reason to have OD installed - if you don't have any local apps using the files - then OD is pointless (at least the local application) Your files are just 'in the cloud' sure personal files are in something called OD, and shared are in Sharepoint - but again, nothing local.
@Obsolesce would probably know for sure, but I think you can encrypt that partition and require authentication to access it.
I would however not even bother with it. Train them to use Office Online and your OS dependency completely goes away.
Data at rest should always be encrypted, no exceptions. We ensure all user devices are encrypted. Windows bitlocker, androids, ios, macs, everything.
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
You can do this with scripts, it's not nearly as hard as people think. If this is your environment, you can build scripts to do this really quickly. In fact, I bet you can automate this without AD faster than you can with AD. We have O365 customers where we have to automate this and yes, that's harder than AD automation, but it's a million times worse than local scripts. Scripts always sound like a kludge, but really, what's AD other than tons of really good, well reviewed scripts (basically.)
How do you like to ensure delivery of these scripts to devices that need them, prevent those that don't from getting them, monitor progress, completion, and compliance of it?
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@Obsolesce said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
Toss in a situation where many users must be able to use nearly any computer in the office at any time - and now what? really - how do you manage that?
100 desktops, 100 users, and they play musical charges daily - now what?
Everything they access of value is cloud based, so you only care about authentication to that service not authentication to the local system.
You can prevent users from storing files locally on OD for example and in that case if their workstation is compromised none of the data is sensitive.
why would you even have OD if you can prevent local storage of files?
That statement makes no sense. If you prevent local storage you have to have a service like OD to access files.
Thanks for pulling a scott and not reading the followup where I answered my own question - but left it there anyways for other people who might have had the same thought I originally did.
that said - the file is still saved locally - in the cache of OD. I don't believe you can work locally with a non cached file.
I'm prepared to be wrong that account though if you have an article from MS stating as much.Why would you need to use Desktop Office? Why not use Office Online?
Because it gives you a reason to have OD installed - if you don't have any local apps using the files - then OD is pointless (at least the local application) Your files are just 'in the cloud' sure personal files are in something called OD, and shared are in Sharepoint - but again, nothing local.
@Obsolesce would probably know for sure, but I think you can encrypt that partition and require authentication to access it.
I would however not even bother with it. Train them to use Office Online and your OS dependency completely goes away.
Data at rest should always be encrypted, no exceptions. We ensure all user devices are encrypted. Windows bitlocker, androids, ios, macs, everything.
Yes but can you force authentication when access synced OD files? And by authentication I mean checking the validity of token not logging in each time.
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@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Obsolesce said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@IRJ said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
@Dashrender said in SAMIT: Do You Really Need Active Directory:
Toss in a situation where many users must be able to use nearly any computer in the office at any time - and now what? really - how do you manage that?
100 desktops, 100 users, and they play musical charges daily - now what?
Everything they access of value is cloud based, so you only care about authentication to that service not authentication to the local system.
You can prevent users from storing files locally on OD for example and in that case if their workstation is compromised none of the data is sensitive.
why would you even have OD if you can prevent local storage of files?
That statement makes no sense. If you prevent local storage you have to have a service like OD to access files.
Thanks for pulling a scott and not reading the followup where I answered my own question - but left it there anyways for other people who might have had the same thought I originally did.
that said - the file is still saved locally - in the cache of OD. I don't believe you can work locally with a non cached file.
I'm prepared to be wrong that account though if you have an article from MS stating as much.Why would you need to use Desktop Office? Why not use Office Online?
Because it gives you a reason to have OD installed - if you don't have any local apps using the files - then OD is pointless (at least the local application) Your files are just 'in the cloud' sure personal files are in something called OD, and shared are in Sharepoint - but again, nothing local.
@Obsolesce would probably know for sure, but I think you can encrypt that partition and require authentication to access it.
I would however not even bother with it. Train them to use Office Online and your OS dependency completely goes away.
Data at rest should always be encrypted, no exceptions. We ensure all user devices are encrypted. Windows bitlocker, androids, ios, macs, everything.
Yes but can you force authentication when access synced OD files? And by authentication I mean checking the validity of token not logging in each time.
Encryption at rest does nothing for you once the OS is booted. So a stolen device is mostly safe. But an unlocked workstation isn't, unless you require authentication for each access - which would drive users crazy...
Assuming a non local admin user logs into another profile - they likely can't reach the files synced in some other profile in OD, so those are likely safe too.
