Now generally available: Managed Service for Microsoft Active Directory (AD)

You can use the service to simplify and automate familiar AD tasks like automatically “domain joining” new Windows VMs by integrating the service with Cloud DNS, hardening Windows VMs by applying Group Policy Objects (GPOs), controlling Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) access through GPOs, and more. For example, one of our customers, OpenX, has been using the service to reduce their infrastructure management work:

“Google Cloud’s Managed AD service is exactly what we were hoping it would be. It gives us the flexibility to manage our Active Directory without the burden of having to manage the infrastructure,” said Aaron Finney, Infrastructure Architecture, OpenX. “By using the service, we are able to solve for efficiency, reduce costs, and enable our highly-skilled engineers to focus on strategic business objectives instead of tactical systems administration tasks.”

And our partner, itopia, has been leveraging Managed AD to make the lives of their customers easier: “itopia makes it easy to migrate VDI workloads to Google Cloud and deliver multi-session Windows desktops and apps to users on any device. Until now, the customer was responsible for managing and patching AD. With Google Cloud’s Managed AD service, itopia can deploy cloud environments more comprehensively and take away one more piece of the IT burden from enterprise IT staff,” said Jonathan Lieberman, CEO, itopia. “Managed AD gives our customers even more incentive to move workloads to the cloud along with the peace of mind afforded by a Google Cloud managed service.”

Getting started

To learn more about getting started with Managed Service for Microsoft AD now that it’s generally available, check out the quickstart, read the documentation, review pricing, and watch the webinar.