Active Directory- An essential component of organizations - By: Abner Byron

Active Directory is the directory service which is the integral part of Windows architecture. Like other directory services, Active Directory is a standardized and centralized system that automates network management of user data, security and distributed resources and enables incorporation with other directories. It has been designed to manage distributed network environments. Active Directory provides single hierarchical view which helps the administrators to manage all network resources.

Active Directory is a special purpose database and is designed to handle a huge number of read and search operations as well as changes and updates. Active Directory data is hierarchical, replicated and extensible. Since it is replicated, user can’t store dynamic data to it such as corporate stock prices or CPU performance. If your data is machine specific, store the data in the registry. The data which are stored in the directory include printer queue data and network or computer configuration data. The database of Active Directory consists of objects and attributes and their definitions are stored in Active Directory schema.

Active Directory has been newly implemented in Windows 2000 Sever and is further enhanced for Windows 2003 and 2007 to make it an important part of the operating system. Windows Active Directory provides a single reference called a directory service to all the objects in a network including users, groups, computers, printers and permissions.

The Windows Active Directory has three partitions which are known as domain, schema and configuration. The domain partition contains users, groups, contacts, computers, organizational units and many other object types. As Active Directory is extensible, you can add your own objects and attributes. The second partition or schema partition contains classes and attribute definitions. The configuration partition includes configuration data for services, partitions and sites.

Active Directory is used by computer administrators to manage end user computer software packages, files, accounts and other organizational units in a medium to large- sized organizations. The task of visiting every single computer for updating them or installing new software can easily be accomplished by simply updating a single object located in the Active Directory forest or tree. On the other hand, AD facilitates the network administrator to grant or deny for any access at the user level for one or many applications. There are two types of “Trusts” incorporated into Microsoft Active Directory which are one way non- transitive and transitive trusts. In transitive trusts, the trust is extended up to past two domains in a set tree. In such case, two entities can share each other’s domains and trees. In one way transitive trust, a user can access another domain or tree but the other domain cannot give the access for further domains. In this case, the admin can visit the trees and can see that most trees in the forest are including end user’s domains. However, the end user is not allowed to access other trees apart from his or her own domain.

Lepide Software group brings an innovative AD tool that manages all admin issues in Windows 7 Active Directory. The LADMR or Lepide Active Directory Management & Reporting tool manages all AD tasks in a domain and generates reports on various AD objects.

For more information please visit here: http://www.windowsactivedirectory.net

About the Author

The author of this article is a renowned network administrator and has dealt with many network management issues and Windows Active Directory processes. The author has written numerous articles that act as the guidance to the users to use Windows 7 Active Directory tool.

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Abner-Byron/214176

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