Cutting identity sync latency from 30 minutes to seconds — without touching the default sync interval.
By default, Microsoft Entra Connect (formerly Azure AD Connect) synchronizes Active Directory changes to the cloud every 30 minutes. For environments where identity changes need near-instant propagation — onboarding, access control, compliance — that delay is unacceptable.
The common fix? Reduce the sync interval to 5 minutes or less. But that means polling 6x more often, burning CPU on the AD server and the sync engine, even when nothing changed.
Instead of polling harder, we let the OS tell us when something matters. A Windows Scheduled Task listens for Security Event IDs — the exact signals Windows emits when AD objects change — and fires a delta sync only when needed.
The task watches for 13 Security Event IDs covering the full lifecycle of user and group changes:
A lightweight helper script on the Domain Controller handles the sync call:
The Windows Scheduled Task Auto-EntraSync-OnADChange runs as SYSTEM with a 10-minute execution limit, registered via XML to ensure reliability over remote management.
The default 30-minute sync cycle remains intact as a safety net — the event trigger is an acceleration layer, not a replacement.