Customer case
MIGRATING FROM SAMBA 3 TO SAMBA ACTIVE DIRECTORY
PRIVATE SECTOR – BANQUE CENTRALE DES ETATS DE L’AFRIQUE DE L’OUEST
In order to ensure the security of its IT assets, the Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest wanted to migrate from Samba3 to Samba Active Directory. But why? How did they do it? How did they feel about it? We explain.
Presentation
The Central Bank of West African States is a network of 24 branches located in the main cities of the West African economic and monetary zone. The bank and its regional agencies are responsible for issuing CFA franc banknotes, and for collecting and destroying used notes. Finally, BCEAO is responsible for issuing the banknotes of its 8 member states, as is the ECB in Europe. Each of the 24 branches operates an office automation domain based on Samba3 software, which is highly critical and rapidly becoming obsolete.
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As part of the SAMBA-AD migration, this involved:
Excerpt from the project report
The BCEAO mandated TRANQUIL IT to support its teams in:
Migration of Windows Samba3-PDC-NT4 domains to Samba Active Directory technology,
Renaming the main domain,
Merging all 26 domains into a single BCEAO domain.
Denis CARDON, a graduate engineer from ENS des Mines de Nancy and Managing Director of TRANQUIL IT, and Yvan KARMOUTA worked in Dakar from mid-September to mid-October 2015. BCEAO has long invested in open-world IT technologies. This strategy offers the advantage of banking on the development of local skills and reduces the importation of technologies without the transfer of associated knowledge.
Samba3 domain technologies are based on Windows Server NT4 operation, with several enhancements to enable better load holding and guarantee greater security. However, NT4 is rapidly becoming obsolete. For example, the latest Windows 10 version can only be integrated into a Samba3-NT4-PDC domain if you force the use of the old CIFS/ SMB1 protocol.
The choice to migrate from Samba3 to Samba Active Directory was therefore a logical one. This is also one of the concerns of a large number of French administrations who have also made the historic choice of Samba. The choice of Samba4-AD rather than MSAD is not the most obvious choice, and many organizations are questioning this option.
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Estimated gains using SAMBA