Run AAD Connect Sync & Monitor Status

by jente | Jul 22, 2021 | Azure AD, Scripting

Depending on the size of an AD environment (and more specifically, the number and location of objects that are in scope to be synced), a delta sync can take anywhere between a couple of seconds and significantly longer.

Checking if a sync currently is running is possible using a couple of methods. When sticking to PowerShell, the following commands can be utilized:

Start-AdSyncSyncCycle: running this command interactively when a sync is running will result in an “in your face” error message similar to the following:

Get-AdSyncScheduler: this command outputs the configuration settings of the sync process and also includes the state, wether or not it is running:

While all of the above are usable, they are not that user friendly, and require a user to retry the command in order to know *when* sync has been completed.

The below PowerShell code (let’s not call it a script, shall we?) does the following things:

• Checks if a sync process currently is running
• If not, starts a delta sync
• Notifies the user / admin when the delta sync is finished

# verify if ADSync module is loaded, and if not, load it.
$module = Get-Module "ADsync"
if ($module -eq $null)
{
Import-Module AdSync
}else
{
    Write-Host "ADSync Module already loaded"
}

# verify if a sync is currently running. If not, start a delta sync
$sync = Get-AdSyncScheduler

if ($sync.SyncCycleInProgress -eq $False)
{
Start-AdSyncSyncCycle -Policytype "Delta" |Out-Null
}

# periodically test if sync is running until it's... not running anymore
do {
    Write-Host "Azure AD Connect Sync Cycle in Progress..." -ForegroundColor "Yellow"
    $sync = Get-AdSyncScheduler
    
} until ($sync.SyncCycleInProgress -eq $False)

Write-Host "Azure AD Connect Sync Cycle is finished." -ForegroundColor "Green"