Azure AD Connect is Microsoft’s free tool to synchronize objects and their attributes from Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) implementations to Azure Active Directory tenants. Many millions of organizations depend on Azure Active Directory and the APIs that the tool connects to.

Azure AD Connect’s v2 Endpoint

Microsoft has deployed a new endpoint (API) for Azure AD Connect that improves the performance of the synchronization service operations to Azure Active Directory. We reported on the Public Preview availability of this v2 endpoint roughly 8 months ago.

Now, the v2 endpoint has moved from Public Preview to General Availability.

When organizations use the new v2 endpoint, you'll experience noticeable performance gains on export and import to Azure AD. This new endpoint supports the following scenarios:

• Syncing groups with up to 250,000 members
• Performance gains on export and import to Azure AD

What this means

For versions of Azure AD Connect ranging from version 1.5.30.0 to 1.5.45.0, the v2 endpoint still needs to be enabled manually, using the following lines of Windows PowerShell:

Set-ADSyncScheduler -SyncCycleEnabled $false

Import-Module 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Azure AD Sync\Extensions\AADConnector.psm1'

Set-ADSyncAADConnectorExportApiVersion 2

Set-ADSyncAADConnectorImportApiVersion 2

Set-ADSyncScheduler -SyncCycleEnabled $true

Additionally, to increase the group memberships limit, you’ll still need to manually change the Out to AAD – Group Join synchronization rule.

Further reading

HOWTO: Use Azure AD Connect’s v2 Endpoint  
HOWTO: Tell if Azure AD Connect is using the v2 Endpoint