Introduction

In previous chapters, we've discussed forests, domains, trusts, sites, and organizational units. In this chapter, we're going to take a closer look at the Global Catalog and Global Catalog servers. We'll also look at the Active Directory schema. Understanding the structure of AD is important in order to be an efficient Windows Server 2003 administrator.

Active Directory uses the Global Catalog (GC), which is a copy of all the Active Directory objects in the forest, to let users search for directory information across all the domains in the forest. The GC is also used to resolve user principal names (UPNs) when the domain controller (DC) that is authenticating logon isn't aware of the account (because that account resides in a different domain). When the DC can't find the user's account in its own domain database, it then looks in the GC. The GC also stores information about membership in Universal Groups.

Because the GC performs all these functions for the multidomain network, it is important for administrators to understand how it works and how to create, manage, and place the GC servers that hold the GC. In this chapter, we look at this special type of domain controller: the Global Catalog Server. You'll learn about the role the GC plays in the network, and how to customize the GC using the Schema Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in. We show you how to create and manage GC servers, and we'll explain how GC replication works. You'll learn about the factors...