Active directory, LDAP, Domain Controller

Active Directory is a created by that provides a variety of , including:

• : LDAP is the industry standard directory access protocol, making Active Directory widely accessible to management and query applications. Active Directory supports LDAPv3 and LDAPv2.
• -based
• -based naming and other network information (Guts of DNS, Stable DNS is needed for AD to work properly)
• Central location for network administration and delegation of authority
• Information security and single sign-on for user access to networked based resources
• The ability to scale up or down easily
• Central storage location for application data
• Synchronization of directory updates amongst several servers

Active Directory also allows administrators to assign policies, deploy software, and apply critical updates to an organization.

Structure

Objects

Everything that Active Directory tracks is considered an . An is any user, system, computer, resource, or service tracked within Active Directory. The generic term object is used because Active Directory is capable of tracking a variety of items, and many objects can share common attributes.

An Active Directory structure is a hierarchical framework of .

Sites

A Site object in Active Directory represents a geographic location that hosts networks. Sites contain objects called . Sites can be used to assign , facilitate the discovery of resources, manage active directory replication, and manage network link traffic. Sites can be linked to other Sites. Site-linked objects may be assigned a cost value that represents the speed, reliability, availability, or other real property of a physical resource. Site Links may also be assigned a schedule.

Forests, trees, and domains

All objects inside a common directory database is known as a domain. Each domain stores information only about the objects that belong to that domain. A tree consists of a single domain or multiple domains in a contiguous namespace. A forest is a collection of Trees and represents the outermost boundary within which users, computers, groups, and other objects exist. The forest is the security boundary for Active Directory.

The Active Directory framework that holds the objects can be viewed at a number of levels. At the top of the structure is the forest. A forest is a collection of multiple trees that share a common global catalog, directory schema, logical structure, and directory configuration. The forest, tree, and domain are the logical parts in an Active Directory network.

The Active Directory forest contains one or more transitive, trust-linked trees. A tree is a collection of one or more domains and domain trees in a contiguous namespace, again linked in a transitive trust hierarchy. Domains are identified by their name structure, the

 

 

A domain controller is a server that is running a version of the Windows Server® operating system and has Active Directory® Domain Services installed.

 

 

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