Dell EMC Avamar for Windows Servers 19.7 User Guide

Authoritative and nonauthoritative restores

You can perform either a nonauthoritative or an authoritative restore of Active Directory:

• Use a nonauthoritative restore when Active Directory replication partners can return a domain controller to a known state. You restore the domain controller from a backup. When you restart the domain controller after the restore, other domain controllers replicate changes made after the backup.

• Use an authoritative restore to return a domain controller to a known state as the master copy. The data from the restored domain controller replicates to other domain controllers.

  An authoritative restore also enables you to mark specific organizational units (OUs) so that Active Directory objects replicate to other domain controllers. In addition, replication partners do not overwrite the replicated objects.

The following Microsoft TechNet articles provide details on an authoritative restore:

• “Performing Authoritative Restore of Active Directory Objects” provides general details on an authoritative restore.
• “Mark an Object or Objects as Authoritative” provides details on the command syntax for marking items for an authoritative restore.