What is AWS Directory Service AD Connector?

The AWS Directory Service is a managed service that makes it easy to connect to your existing on-premises Microsoft Active Directory with AD Connector, or set up and operate a new directory in the AWS cloud with Simple AD. This enables you to seamlessly join Amazon EC2 Windows instances to your domain upon launch, making it easy to deploy and manage Windows workloads in the AWS cloud. Your directory users and groups can access the AWS Management Console, and AWS applications, such as Amazon WorkSpaces, Amazon WorkDocs, and Amazon WorkMail, using their existing credentials.

AD Connector is a proxy service provided by AWS Directory Service that enables you to easily connect your on-premises Microsoft Active Directory to the AWS cloud, without requiring complex directory synchronization technologies or the cost and complexity of hosting a federation infrastructure. AD Connector forwards sign-in requests to your Active Directory domain controllers for authentication and provides the ability for applications to query the directory for data. After setup, your users can use their existing corporate credentials to log on to AWS applications, such as Amazon WorkSpaces, Amazon WorkDocs, or Amazon WorkMail, and manage AWS resources (e.g., Amazon EC2 instances or Amazon S3 buckets) using AWS Identity and Access Management role-based access to the AWS Management Console. In addition to providing a streamlined experience for your users, this also means that your existing security policies, such as password expiration, password history, and account lockouts, can be enforced consistently whether users are accessing resources in your on-premises infrastructure or the AWS cloud. You can also use AD Connector to enable multi-factor authentication by integrating with your existing RADIUS-based MFA infrastructure to provide an additional layer of security when users access AWS applications.

For information about the AWS Directory Service API, see the AWS Directory Service Developer Guide.

For information about creating a directory in the AWS cloud with Simple AD, see the AWS Directory Service Simple AD Administration Guide.