3.1 Introduction

This chapter reviews various aspects of Active Directory replication. We will introduce the terminology that describes the replication technology used in Windows 2000 and explain how data are replicated between Windows 2000 servers. We will also look at how replication topologies are generated within a Windows 2000 site and between sites. Finally, we will review some possible designs for a replication topology and provide recommendations.

We will be doing a technical drill-down of the replication features implemented by the Active Directory and review some of the design options that should be considered during a deployment project.

Active Directory replication is an important step to master when dealing with large corporate deployments. Many new applications will be relying on the consistency of the Active Directory. Many will also store their own objects and attributes in the Active Directory. An Active Directory enabled application will not worry about the replication aspects of the data it stores in the Active Directory. Once the data are defined in the schema and instances of objects created in the Active Directory, the application will attempt to access these objects, potentially in a distributed manner, but will not be involved in the replication of these data between Domain Controllers. An example of such application is Exchange 2000. The Global Address List (GAL) in Exchange V5.5 is integrated in the Active Directory in the Exchange 2000 release. This means that the directory portion of Exchange is stored in the Active Directory, and, therefore, it is important to...