What is a best practice regarding the installation of multiple Okta Active Directory agents?

The best practice for the installation of multiple Okta Active Directory agents is to install at least two agents on different servers for redundancy. This approach ensures that the Okta integration with Active Directory remains operational even if one of the agents fails or becomes unavailable. Redundancy is crucial for maintaining a reliable authentication system, as it minimizes downtime and enhances the overall resilience of the connection between Okta and Active Directory.

By having multiple agents, organizations can also balance the load between them, which can be particularly beneficial in high-demand environments. This setup allows for continual service delivery and operational efficiency, providing a backup option that contributes to the robustness of the system.

In contrast, installing a single agent per domain may pose risks. If that sole agent experiences an issue, the connection to Active Directory could be interrupted, leaving users unable to authenticate. Avoiding installation on domain controllers typically arises from performance considerations and potential security implications, while focusing solely on high-performance servers overlooks the need for redundancy across the deployment. Therefore, having at least two agents on different servers strikes the right balance between redundancy, performance, and reliability.