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Four Offices. One Domain. Zero Windows Server Licences.

A multi-office organisation needed a centralised identity and access management system — so that any employee could log in to any machine at any office with a single set of credentials, policies could be enforced uniformly, and IT could manage all users from one place. The conventional path: buy multiple Windows Server licences, deploy Active Directory Domain Controllers at every site, and pay annual Microsoft licensing fees — year after year. Techieism delivered the same capability for zero licensing cost using an open-source stack.

We designed and deployed four Samba Active Directory Domain Controllers — one at each office location — running on Linux servers. Samba AD is fully compatible with Microsoft's Active Directory protocol, which means existing Windows PCs, printers, and applications join the domain exactly as they would with Windows Server. The four Domain Controllers are replicated and interconnected: all user accounts, group policies, and authentication data stay in sync across every office automatically. If one DC goes offline, the others continue serving authentication without interruption — giving the client built-in redundancy at every site.

Every employee logs in with a single domain account, regardless of which office or machine they use. Group Policy Objects control security settings, software deployment, and access rights centrally. The IT team manages everything from one console. What this replaced: Multiple Windows Server 2022 Standard licences (₹40,000–₹80,000 per server), annual CAL costs per user, and the complexity of maintaining separate user databases per office.