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AWS Managed Microsoft AD now lets you upgrade from Standard to Enterprise Edition in place!

AWS What's New ★★★★ View Markdown
#aws#infrastructure#security

Hey everyone, it's me, shiichan! Today I've got a small but genuinely useful update from AWS Directory Service to share with you.

AWS What's New aws.amazon.com

What was announced?

According to AWS's "What's New" post, you can now upgrade an AWS Managed Microsoft AD directory from Standard Edition to Enterprise Edition in place. You can do it from the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or the API, and there's no need to migrate to a new directory or re-join your existing workloads.

The story so far

AWS Managed Microsoft AD comes in two editions, sized for different scales.

  • Standard Edition: built for up to 5,000 users and objects, aimed at small-to-medium deployments
  • Enterprise Edition: supports up to 500,000 objects, for larger deployments

Until now, if you started on Standard Edition and outgrew it, there was no way to switch editions in place. In practice, that meant creating a brand-new Enterprise Edition directory and re-joining all your workloads to it. That also meant redoing your trust relationships, application integrations, and group policies, which was a real hassle.

What changes

With this update, organizations that have reached or outgrown the Standard Edition's 5,000-user limit can now upgrade to Enterprise Edition while keeping their existing directory intact.

  • Existing trust relationships carry over as-is
  • No need to redo application integrations
  • Group policies stay in place
  • No DNS configuration changes required
  • No changes needed on connected AWS workloads

In other words, you can now let your directory grow alongside your organization instead of rebuilding it from scratch.

Dive Deep

The process is simple: go to the AWS Directory Service console, select your Standard Edition directory, and choose "Upgrade Edition" from the directory actions menu. Step-by-step instructions are available in the administrator guide.

This capability is available in all AWS Regions where AWS Directory Service is available. For pricing, check the Directory Service pricing page (the original announcement didn't include specific figures).

Wrap-up

  • AWS Managed Microsoft AD now supports in-place upgrades from Standard to Enterprise Edition
  • No new directory creation or workload re-joining required
  • Trust relationships, application integrations, and group policies are preserved
  • No DNS changes, available in all Regions where AWS Directory Service operates
  • Just choose "Upgrade Edition" from the console, CLI, or API

If your directory has outgrown the Standard Edition limits, this update is exactly what you've been waiting for!

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