Introduction to Administering Active Directory

As organizations grow and require more applications, services, and resources, additional management and administration become necessary. Even the smallest companies now seem to require computer networks and their services, including the assistance of an IT professional, as either a full-time employee, a contractor, or a third party. Fulfilling these needs can become expensive very quickly, so it is necessary to find the most effective and efficient methods of reducing total cost of ownership (TCO).

The IT industry has developed many options to ease this burden, including the concept of directory service, which has been used for years to define many different services from one end of the spectrum to the other. For example, Microsoft has called its user accounts database NTDS (NT Directory Service) for some time. Other vendors use other forms of directory services to perform similar functions. Microsoft has incorporated many of the current and new technologies into its new operating system, Windows 2000. Microsoft has also updated and redesigned its previous NTDS into a new form, Active Directory.

Although Active Directory is fairly new, many of the concepts upon which it is based have long been in use throughout the computer industry. The Active Directory namespace is based on current DNS standards that have been in place for years. Other features have been added that are fairly new to Windows; for example, the Encrypting File System (EFS), Kerberos authentication for communications, and Certificate Authorities have been added to provide a more scalable...