Attempting to activate an Active Directory-Based Activation throws the error: “Access is denied.”

Problem

You attempt to activate a new Windows Server 2012 R2 KMS server as an Active Directory-Based Activation:

… but receive the following error:

The following error has occurred. Please resolve the error and try again.

Description:

Access is denied.

Solution

The reason this error is presented is because the KMS server is not a domain controller.  The following TechNet article describes the requirements for setting up an an Active Directory-Based Activation KMS server:

Activate using Active Directory-based activation
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn613828.aspx