Active Directory Connector Tuning

 

The Active Directory Connector (ADC) requires almost no tuning during typical operation. There are two scenarios in which you might want to consider manually tuning the ADC process: during sleep time and block searching. For Exchange 2000 Server customers, this section contains the same recommendations as previous Exchange 2000 Server performance documentation.

Sleep Time

After the ADC has fully replicated Exchange and Active Directory data, it performs replication on the changes made to those directories. In most circumstances, those changes are small. During a connection agreement's activation time, the ADC is permitted to work continuously for 5 minutes. After that, the ADC sleeps for 5 minutes to allow other applications, such as replication processing time on domain controller or global catalog servers, to run. However, if a connection agreement is running for the first time or if many changes are made to one of the directories, you may want to permit the ADC to perform the replication without sleeping (and therefore speed up the replication cycle). You can configure the maximum time that the ADC is permitted to work without sleeping and the maximum time the ADC should sleep by setting the Max Continuous Sync (secs) registry value and the Sync Sleep Delay (secs) registry value to control the behavior of the Active Directory Connector.

For detailed instructions about how to set the Max Continuous Sync (secs) registry value, see How to Set the Max Continuous Sync (secs) Registry Value.

For detailed instructions about how to set the Sync Sleep Delay (secs) registry value, see How to Set the Sync Sleep Delay (secs) Registry Value.

Note

These changes affect all the connection agreements running on the ADC server, and they may adversely affect other Active Directory applications.

For more information, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 253825, "XADM: How the Active Directory Connector Polling Period Works."

Block Searching

By default, the ADC requests changes from Exchange and Active Directory in blocks of 10,000. If more than 10,000 objects are to be replicated, the ADC requests the first 10,000 entries, processes them, and then prompts you for the next 10,000. If the ADC communicates with directory servers over an error-prone network, it may be useful to reduce the block size. If the ADC receives a partial block caused by a connection failure, the complete block must be replicated again.

If the Active Directory Connector is replicating over a WAN, or in an environment with low bandwidth, you should consider setting the Export Block Size registry value to lowering the block size. Reducing the block size reduces the number repeat replications caused by connection failures.

For detailed instructions, see How to Set the Export Block Size Registry Value.

For more information, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles: