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PRODUCT

CayosoftGuardian Forest Recovery

When AD goes down business operations grind to a halt. Get it back INSTANTLY with Cayosoft.
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The Fastest and Only Viable AD Recovery Solution

Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery™ is an all-in-one, instant recovery solution for every major directory scenario. Continuous change monitoring and instant rollback capabilities ensure business continuity.

21 Days

Avg. downtime after ransomware/cyber attack

$1.85m

Avg. cost for recovery from ransomware attack

Instantly

GFR restores AD in minutes. Competitors take days or weeks.

Immediate Business Continuity

Restoring AD instantly with an isolated, clean forest is something only Cayosoft can deliver.

True Hybrid AD

One unified console built for hybrid from the ground up.

HYBRID

GFR was built from the ground up for Hybrid Active Directory.

INSTANT ON

Restores AD forests, objects and attributes, & domain controllers in minutes, not days or weeks.

Enterprise IT Product of the Year

Enterprise IT Product of the Year

Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery Wins Redmond Magazine’s 2024 Enterprise IT Product of the Year Award

Technology of the Year
Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery Wins InfoWorld’s 2024 Technology of the Year Award

Technology of the Year

Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery Wins InfoWorld’s 2024 Technology of the Year Award

Features & Benefits

  • Recover Instantly

  • Instant AD Forest Recovery Automation

    Fast forest recovery with comprehensive automation and advanced backup and recovery plans needed for instant and accurate recovery, in all key Microsoft directory recovery scenarios. With Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery, automate your entire forest recovery process and get back to business faster. Backup and recovery plans include domain controller recovery and promotion, DNS configuration, raising RID pools, setting DSRM passwords, seizing FSMO roles, global catalog configuration, group policy objects (GPOs), and other critical tasks.

    Benefits:

    • Require less admin time & remove human errors, when/if forest recovery is needed
    • Automate forest recovery & resume operations 10X faster than native or 3rd party recovery processes
    • One-click forest recovery includes 35+ operations recommended by Microsoft
  • Monitor for Changes

  • True Hybrid Change Monitoring and Recovery

    The only platform that delivers all-in-one Active Directory forest recovery software for on-premises AD, hybrid AD, and Azure AD scenarios including instant object and attribute recovery, DC recovery, and full forest recovery, as well as continuous change monitoring. Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery allows you to ensure the availability and integrity of all your directories. By having to only maintain and manage one platform,  easily reduce your attack surface and avoid costly business interruptions.

    Benefits:

    • Accelerate recovery with a single console for hybrid AD (on-prem & Azure) — reduce time & complexity
    • Know immediately when unwanted changes are being attempted, even automate a reaction
    • Better together: change monitoring + instant recovery = quickly identify & instantly rollback, regardless if on-prem or in cloud
  • Streamline Backups

  • Ideal Active Directory Backups

    Collecting only what is needed reduces the data stored, speeding the recovery process and recovery times without introducing possible malware-infected components. Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery simplifies and streamlines AD recovery with smaller backups that only collect, store, and process the data necessary for you to recover your AD forest.

    Benefits:

    • Accelerate the backup & recovery process by doing smaller, more targeted backups
    • Safest & most efficient means of recovery
    • Eliminates the risk of malware reinfection
  • Eliminate Reinfection

  • Clean Restore Anywhere

    Authoritative restore to clean Windows servers ensures a secure and rapid recovery, while preventing reintroduction of malware. Restoration to an on-premises physical server, virtual machine (VM), or to an Azure VM provides the ultimate recovery flexibility. When your Active Directory gets attacked, cyber threat actors often seek ways to spread like escalating privileges, moving laterally, and corrupting additional servers, creating risk of reinfection when restoring your AD forest. With Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery, choose which recovery process is best for your situation.

    Benefits:

    • Recover wherever you have clean servers (virtual, physical, on-prem, cloud)
    • Eliminate the risk of reintroduction of rootkits, ransomware, & other malware during recovery
    • Significantly reduce the forest recovery process
  • Rollback Unwanted Changes

  • Instant Granular Object and Attribute-Level Restore

    Instant, granular recovery of AD or Azure AD objects and attributes, like group memberships, group policy objects (GPOs), account settings, changes to Azure AD policies, Microsoft license assignments, and Microsoft Teams memberships, enables fast recovery. Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery’s Active Directory object and attribute recovery goes beyond the basic capabilities of the native recycle bin “undelete” feature.

    Benefits:

    • Get back to normal operations as quickly as possible — eliminate downtime & negative impact on users
    • Granular recovery of AD or Azure AD objects & attributes that competitors miss
    • Minimizes the effects of outages by instantly rolling back smaller, more frequent mistakes or malicious changes
  • Guarantee Recovery

  • Isolated Virtual Labs for Disaster Recovery (DR) and Other Testing

    Define recovery plans to create production AD forest duplicates, test and document recovery procedures, and create virtual labs for other changes to domains or forests. Be prepared for when, not if, the inevitable forest outage happens with an all-in-one Active Directory disaster recovery and backup solution. Use Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery’s virtual forest test labs to test disaster scenarios and other changes that have the potential to cause outages, such as schema changes, application upgrades, changes to AD capabilities, and scripted operations.

    Benefits:

    • Easily & frequently test your disaster recovery plan’s effectiveness in a replicated environment & in virtual labs
    • Ensure AD recovery — use test labs to see how changes or specific situations impact your disaster recovery strategy
    • Prevent costly outages by isolating recovery environment from production forest environment
  • Download Datasheet

  • Download Datasheet

    Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery
    Learn more about Cayosoft Guardian

    Benefits:

    • Benefit
    • Benefit
    • Benefit

Instant AD Forest Recovery Automation

Fast forest recovery with comprehensive automation and advanced backup and recovery plans needed for instant and accurate recovery, in all key Microsoft directory recovery scenarios. With Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery, automate your entire forest recovery process and get back to business faster. Backup and recovery plans include domain controller recovery and promotion, DNS configuration, raising RID pools, setting DSRM passwords, seizing FSMO roles, global catalog configuration, group policy objects (GPOs), and other critical tasks.

Benefits:

  • Require less admin time & remove human errors, when/if forest recovery is needed
  • Automate forest recovery & resume operations 10X faster than native or 3rd party recovery processes
  • One-click forest recovery includes 35+ operations recommended by Microsoft

True Hybrid Change Monitoring and Recovery

The only platform that delivers all-in-one Active Directory forest recovery software for on-premises AD, hybrid AD, and Azure AD scenarios including instant object and attribute recovery, DC recovery, and full forest recovery, as well as continuous change monitoring. Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery allows you to ensure the availability and integrity of all your directories. By having to only maintain and manage one platform,  easily reduce your attack surface and avoid costly business interruptions.

Benefits:

  • Accelerate recovery with a single console for hybrid AD (on-prem & Azure) — reduce time & complexity
  • Know immediately when unwanted changes are being attempted, even automate a reaction
  • Better together: change monitoring + instant recovery = quickly identify & instantly rollback, regardless if on-prem or in cloud

Ideal Active Directory Backups

Collecting only what is needed reduces the data stored, speeding the recovery process and recovery times without introducing possible malware-infected components. Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery simplifies and streamlines AD recovery with smaller backups that only collect, store, and process the data necessary for you to recover your AD forest.

Benefits:

  • Accelerate the backup & recovery process by doing smaller, more targeted backups
  • Safest & most efficient means of recovery
  • Eliminates the risk of malware reinfection

Clean Restore Anywhere

Authoritative restore to clean Windows servers ensures a secure and rapid recovery, while preventing reintroduction of malware. Restoration to an on-premises physical server, virtual machine (VM), or to an Azure VM provides the ultimate recovery flexibility. When your Active Directory gets attacked, cyber threat actors often seek ways to spread like escalating privileges, moving laterally, and corrupting additional servers, creating risk of reinfection when restoring your AD forest. With Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery, choose which recovery process is best for your situation.

Benefits:

  • Recover wherever you have clean servers (virtual, physical, on-prem, cloud)
  • Eliminate the risk of reintroduction of rootkits, ransomware, & other malware during recovery
  • Significantly reduce the forest recovery process

Instant Granular Object and Attribute-Level Restore

Instant, granular recovery of AD or Azure AD objects and attributes, like group memberships, group policy objects (GPOs), account settings, changes to Azure AD policies, Microsoft license assignments, and Microsoft Teams memberships, enables fast recovery. Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery’s Active Directory object and attribute recovery goes beyond the basic capabilities of the native recycle bin “undelete” feature.

Benefits:

  • Get back to normal operations as quickly as possible — eliminate downtime & negative impact on users
  • Granular recovery of AD or Azure AD objects & attributes that competitors miss
  • Minimizes the effects of outages by instantly rolling back smaller, more frequent mistakes or malicious changes

Isolated Virtual Labs for Disaster Recovery (DR) and Other Testing

Define recovery plans to create production AD forest duplicates, test and document recovery procedures, and create virtual labs for other changes to domains or forests. Be prepared for when, not if, the inevitable forest outage happens with an all-in-one Active Directory disaster recovery and backup solution. Use Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery’s virtual forest test labs to test disaster scenarios and other changes that have the potential to cause outages, such as schema changes, application upgrades, changes to AD capabilities, and scripted operations.

Benefits:

  • Easily & frequently test your disaster recovery plan’s effectiveness in a replicated environment & in virtual labs
  • Ensure AD recovery — use test labs to see how changes or specific situations impact your disaster recovery strategy
  • Prevent costly outages by isolating recovery environment from production forest environment

Download Datasheet

Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery
Learn more about Cayosoft Guardian

Benefits:

  • Benefit
  • Benefit
  • Benefit

Alternative Solutions Are No Match

Cayosoft is the only company with instant recovery, theirs takes days or weeks. Cayosoft has 99% Customer Retention and a 100% Customer Satisfaction rating – theirs don’t.

Read More Customer Stories

Manage, Monitor, Recover

Cayosoft delivers modern hybrid architecture for AD, Entra ID, Microsoft 365, Intune, and Teams
Cayosoft Administrator™

Manage Hybrid AD from a Single Pane of Glass

Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery™

Instant AD Forest Recovery

Cayosoft Guardian™

Unified Hybrid AD Change Monitoring, Instant Rollback, and Threat Detection

Cayosoft® — Manage, Monitor, Recover

IT Teams Struggle To Protect Their AD and Hybrid Environments

According to a recent Petri survey, most IT environments are alarmingly vulnerable:
Resilience

32%

depend on generic backup tools that fail in complex AD recovery scenarios

Hybrid Complexity

40%

still lean on on-premises AD as their primary solution
Source: Active Directory Forest Recovery and IT Organization Readiness — a Petri.com Audience Survey

Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery™ FAQ

GENERAL OVERVIEW

Cayosoft is the leader in hybrid Microsoft identity management, trusted by enterprises worldwide. We deliver automation, security, and recovery for AD, Entra ID, and Microsoft 365—all from a single platform. With 99% customer retention, 100% hybrid focus, and 100% customer satisfaction, customers don’t just trust Cayosoft—they love us.

Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery is a patented, purpose-built solution for instant Active Directory (AD) forest recovery. It enables whole-forest, domain controller, and object-level restores in minutes, not hours or days, ensuring clean, malware-free recovery and business continuity across hybrid, cloud, or on-premises environments.

Cayosoft GFR is ideal for:

  • Enterprise IT architects managing hybrid AD environments
  • Disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity professionals
  • CISOs and IAM teams preparing for ransomware or identity-based attacks
  • Government and highly regulated industries with compliance mandates
Capabilities and Technology
Most environments recover in minutes. Unlike legacy tools, no domain controller rebuilds, matching system states, or manual scripting are required. DNS cutover activates the standby environment instantly.
Yes. All backups are immutable, encrypted using AES-256, and undergo daily validation and malware scanning. Recovery occurs in clean, isolated environments to prevent reinfection or reintroduction of compromised system state data.
  • VMware
  • Hyper-V
  • Microsoft Azure
  • AWS
  • Recovery can also target dissimilar hardware or virtual environments with alternate IP mappings.
Yes. GFR utilizes an agentless architecture, thereby reducing the attack surface and simplifying deployment. No software is installed on domain controllers.
Recovery Scenarios
  • Full forest-wide recovery
  • Domain controller recovery
  • Individual object or attribute rollback
  • Test/lab recovery for DR drills or compliance validation.
Yes. GFR offers sandboxed, isolated virtual labs to validate disaster recovery (DR) plans, compliance, and backup integrity without affecting production systems.
Yes. Guardian supports multi-domain/multi-forest topologies with orchestrated recovery and DNS reconfiguration capabilities. It scales to support 100,000+ users.
Security and Compliance
Yes. It supports compliance with HIPAA, SOX, GDPR, CMMC, and NIST standards through:
  • Immutable backup trails
  • Detailed role-based access controls
  • Real-time change tracking and rollback
  • Exportable audit logs and daily validation reports.
  • No standing admin rights required
  • All activity is logged with immutable audit trails
  • Supports delegated, scoped access using RBAC/ABAC
  • Integrates with SIEM/SOAR platforms for policy-triggered rollback.
Deployment and Operations
GFR is fully installable and testable in under two hours. It runs in parallel with your existing tools and does not require pre‑staged servers.
Minimal. Daily backup validations, automated malware scans, and centralized dashboards reduce the ongoing administrative burden. Configuration is GUI-driven, not script‑based.
Yes. GFR complements EDR/SIEM platforms like Microsoft Sentinel, Splunk, and CrowdStrike by filling the identity-layer recovery gap that those tools don’t cover.
How Does GFR Compare to Alternatives
Feature Cayosoft GFR Legacy Tools
Recovery Time Minutes Hours or days
Reinfection Protection Immutable, malware-scanned Risk of reintroducing malware
Multi-forest Support Native, fully supported Limited
Agentless Architecture Yes No
Rollback Automation Yes, policy-driven Manual or semi-scripted
SIEM/SOAR Integration Yes Partial or none
Deployment Time Under 2 hours Weeks

Real-world examples show that customers often cancel contracts mid-term with Semperis due to:

  • Failed recoveries
  • Complex setup
  • Poor scalability

Cayosoft succeeded where Semperis failed, including one government agency that restored Active Directory (AD) in under one hour after a catastrophic outage.

Business Impact and ROI
  • Saves millions in downtime costs by restoring AD in minutes
  • Eliminates recovery guesswork and complexity
  • Reduces security and compliance risk exposure
  • Cuts licensing and headcount costs compared to maintaining legacy recovery tools and scripts.

Ready to See Cayosoft in Action?

Let us show you how Cayosoft can save your team time, 
reduce risk, and unlock real productivity.
Schedule A Demo
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