4.1 Understanding the Windows Server and Exchange hierarchy

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

The Active Directory replaces and is a major improvement from the Windows NT 4.0 directory services. The Active Directory also replaces the Exchange-specific directory service found in Exchange Server 5.5. As with Exchange 2000, Exchange 2003 relies completely on the Active Directory and does not have 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 to delegate administrative responsibility to regional or departmental Information Technology (IT) groups using the standard Windows Server management tools.

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