Set Up a Domain Controller in Azure Using Virtual Machines

Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) is the identity and access foundation for most Windows enterprise networks. Domain controllers authenticate users, store directory data, and replicate that state so a single server outage does not take down logon. On Azure, the same AD DS role runs on Windows Server virtual machines: you place those VMs in an availability set, give them static private IPs, and store NTDS.dit and SYSVOL on a dedicated data disk with host caching disabled so Azure disk caching cannot cause USN rollback.

This lab uses that IaaS pattern. Two Windows Server 2022 VMs are already deployed behind Azure Bastion. Promotion reboots each server more than once, so you connect from the Azure Portal with Bastion rather than a persistent desktop session. You initialize the data disks, promote the first VM as a new cloudlearn.local forest, point the virtual network DNS at it, promote the second VM as a replica, and confirm replication health.

Objectives

By completing this intermediate lab, you will be able to:

• Explore a pre-provisioned Azure environment with virtual machines, networking, and availability sets
• Initialize dedicated data disks and install the Active Directory Domain Services role using Server Manager
• Promote a virtual machine to a domain controller and create a new Active Directory forest
• Configure a second VM as a replica domain controller in the same domain for high availability
• Update Azure Virtual Network DNS settings to use the domain controllers' static private IP addresses

Who is this lab for?

This lab is designed for:

• Cloud administrators and IT professionals who deploy and manage IaaS-based Active Directory on Azure virtual machines
• Systems engineers who extend or migrate on-premises Active Directory into Azure using virtual machines