I’ve gotten a few questions if the Directory Service Comparison Tool will be obsolete when Windows Server 2008 R2 with its Active Directory recycle bin arrives and I’d have to say that quite the opposite is true.

I think that the Active Directory recycle bin is a very nice (and long overdue) feature and it will make the consequences of accidental object deletions a non-issue in the future. There’s plenty of articles and blog posts about this on the Internet so it would appear that people are aware of what’s coming in R2.

What the recycle bin will not do for you is help you recover from accidental modifications (anything other than delete operations) on objects in Active Directory. This is where snapshots and DSCTcome into play. The ability to compare two states of any given object and selectively restore any attribute you desire is something that I find very appealing. Strangely enough there is very little information available on the internet regarding AD snapshots and what you can use them for. Given the potential that this piece of technology has I’m surprised by this.

If you ask me the combination of the recycle bin and snapshots is the true killer feature of Active Directory on Windows Server 2008 R2. Throw in regular AD backups and you’re pretty much set for anything.