4.1 Understanding the Windows 2000 and Exchange 2000 hierarchy

An Exchange organization is a networked collection of servers, services, and objects layered on top of the Windows 2000 environment, which is also a networked collection of components. The organization of both the Windows 2000 and Exchange 2000 components is defined in the Windows 2000 Active Directory. The Active Directory includes properties for every Windows 2000 domain, every server, every user, every networked printer, and every Windows 2000 file share in your organization. This is true regardless of whether your environment includes a single computer on a small LAN or many systems and users on many WAN-connected networks.

The Windows 2000 Active Directory replaces and is a major improvement over the Windows NT 4.0 directory services. The Active Directory also replaces the Exchange-specific directory service found in Exchange Server 5.5. Exchange 2000 relies completely on the Windows 2000 Active Directory and no longer has its own directory services.

The Active Directory provides considerable management flexibility to configure the administrative responsibilities to match your company s organizational structure. Using the Active Directory management tools, you can centrally manage users and systems throughout your network regardless of their location. You can also design a directory structure that allows you to distribute or delegate administrative responsibility to regional or departmental IT groups using the standard Windows 2000 management tools.

The administrative flexibility of the Active Directory is due in part to the Windows 2000 and Exchange 2000 separation of the logical structure of the domain and Exchange...