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Domain controllers are the backbone of a Windows network. If your domain controllers are not working then the Active Directory does not work either. If the Active Directory does not work, then users cannot log on, group policies cannot be enforced, and a whole slew of other features become unavailable. To enable administrators to quickly detect and troubleshoot issues with the domain controller before they affect the operations of the AD server, Windows ships with a specialized tool called the Domain Controller Diagnostic (DCDIAG) Utility. DCDIAG is a command-line tool that encapsulates detailed knowledge of how to identify abnormal behavior in the system. The tool analyzes the state of one or all domain controllers in a forest and reports any problems to assist in troubleshooting. It consists of a framework for executing tests and a series of tests to verify different functional areas of the system - eg., replication errors, domain controller connectivity, permissions, proper roles, etc.

Using this test, the eG Enterprise Suite leverages the DCDIAG utility's ability to report on a wide variety of health parameters related to the domain controller. This ensures that even the smallest of aberrations in the performance of the domain controller is captured and promptly brought to the attention of the administrators. The ADChecksTest test executes the DCDIAG command at configured intervals, and based on the output of the command, reports the count of DCDIAG health checks (i.e., tests) that succeeded and failed in the last measurement period. The detailed diagnosis of the Active Directory Checks test will provide detailed information pertaining to tests that failed, and thus assists in troubleshooting.

For this test to run, the DCDIAG.exe should be available in the <WINDOWS_INSTALL_DIR>\windows\system32 directory of the AD server to be monitored. The DCDIAG utility ships with the Windows Server 2003 Support Tools and is built into Windows 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008. This utility may hence not be available in older versions of the Windows operating sytem. When monitoring the AD server on such Windows hosts, this test will run only if the DCDIAG.exe is copied from the <WINDOWS_INSTALL_DIR>\windows\system32 directory any Windows 2003 (or higher) host in the environment to the same directory on the target host.

Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Pass_val	Indicates the number of DCDIAG tests that succeeded during the last measurement period.	Number
Fail_val	Indicates the number of DCDIAG tests that failed during the last measurement period.	Number	A non-zero value for this measure indicates the existence of one/more errors in the functioning of the domain controller. To know what these errors are, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure.