Automated Continuous Active Directory Replication to SQL Server

Always-on applications rely on automatic failover capabilities and real-time data access. CData Sync integrates live Active Directory data into your SQL Server instance, allowing you to consolidate all of your data into a single location for archiving, reporting, analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and more.

Configure SQL Server as a Replication Destination

Using CData Sync, you can replicate Active Directory data to SQL Server. To add a replication destination, navigate to the Connections tab.

1. Click Add Connection.
2. Select SQL Server as a destination.
3. Enter the necessary connection properties. To connect to SQL Server, set the following:
   • Server: The name or network address of the computer running SQL Server.
   • User: The username provided for authentication with SQL Server, if using forms authentication.
   • Password: The password provided for authentication with SQL Server, if using forms authentication.
   • Database: The name of the SQL Server database.

   Java Edition

   The Java version requires the Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver, which can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center. Copy the JDBC driver to the lib folder of your Java Web server to make a connection.

4. Click Test Connection to ensure that the connection is configured properly.
5. Click Save Changes.

Configure the Active Directory Connection

You can configure a connection to Active Directory from the Connections tab. To add a connection to your Active Directory account, navigate to the Connections tab.

1. Click Add Connection.
2. Select a source (Active Directory).
3. Configure the connection properties.
   
   

   To establish a connection, set the following properties:

   • Valid User and Password credentials (e.g., Domain\BobF or cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain).
   • Server information, including the IP or host name of the Server, as well as the Port.

   • BaseDN: This will limit the scope of LDAP searches to the height of the distinguished name provided.

     Note: Specifying a narrow BaseDN may greatly increase performance; for example, cn=users,dc=domain will only return results contained within cn=users and its children.

4. Click Connect to ensure that the connection is configured properly.
5. Click Save Changes.

Configure Replication Queries

CData Sync enables you to control replication with a point-and-click interface and with SQL queries. For each replication you wish to configure, navigate to the Jobs tab and click Add Job. Select the Source and Destination for your replication.

Replicate Entire Tables

To replicate an entire table, click Add Tables in the Tables section, choose the table(s) you wish to replicate, and click Add Selected Tables.

Customize Your Replication

You can use the Columns and Query tabs of a task to customize your replication. The Columns tab allows you to specify which columns to replicate, rename the columns at the destination, and even perform operations on the source data before replicating. The Query tab allows you to add filters, grouping, and sorting to the replication.

Schedule Your Replication

In the Schedule section, you can schedule a job to run automatically, configuring the job to run after specified intervals ranging from once every 10 minutes to once every month.

Once you have configured the replication job, click Save Changes. You can configure any number of jobs to manage the replication of your Active Directory data to SQL Server.