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Benefits of Active Directory

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Unit 8
Assignment 2
Benefits of Active Directory

An Active Directory structure is a hierarchical arrangement of information about objects. The objects fall into two broad categories: resources (e.g., printers) and security principals (user or computer accounts and groups). Security principals are assigned unique security identifiers (SIDs). Each object represents a single entity—whether a user, a computer, a printer, or a group—and its attributes. Certain objects can contain other objects. An object is uniquely identified by its name and has a set of attributes—the characteristics and information that the object represents— defined by a schema, which also determines the kinds of objects that can be stored in Active Directory. The schema object lets administrators extend or modify the schema when necessary. However, because each schema object is integral to the definition of Active Directory objects, deactivating or changing these objects can fundamentally change or disrupt a deployment. Schema changes automatically propagate throughout the system. Once created, an object can only be deactivated—not deleted. Changing the schema usually requires planning. Sites are physical (rather than logical) groupings defined by one or more IP subnets. AD also holds the definitions of connections, distinguishing low-speed (e.g., WAN, VPN) from high-speed (e.g., LAN) links. Site definitions are independent of the domain and OU structure and are common across the forest. Sites are used to control network traffic generated by replication and also to refer clients to the nearest domain controllers (DCs). Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 uses the site topology for mail routing. Policies can also be defined at the site level. Physically, the Active Directory information is held on one or more peer domain controllers, replacing the NT PDC/BDC model. Each DC has a copy of the Active Directory. Servers joined to Active Directory that are not domain controllers are called Member Servers. The Active Directory database is organized in partitions, each holding specific object types and following a specific replication pattern. AD synchronizes changes using multi-master replication. Microsoft often refers to these partitions as 'naming contexts'. The 'Schema' partition contains the definition of object classes and attributes within the Forest. The 'Configuration' partition contains information on the physical structure and configuration of the forest (such as the site topology). Both replicate to all domain controllers in the Forest. The 'Domain' partition holds all objects created in that domain and replicates only to Domain Controllers within its domain. So, for example, a user created in Domain X would be listed only in Domain X's domain controllers. A subset of objects in the domain partition replicate to domain controllers that are configured as global catalogs. Global catalog (GC) servers provide a global listing of all objects in the Forest. Global Catalog servers replicate to themselves all objects from all domains and hence, provide a global listing of objects in the forest. However, to minimize replication traffic and keep the GC's database small, only selected attributes of each object are replicated. This is called the partial attribute set (PAS). The PAS can be modified by modifying the schema and marking attributes for replication to the GC. Earlier versions of Windows used NetBIOS to communicate. Active Directory is fully integrated with DNS and requires TCP/IP—DNS. To be fully functional, the DNS server must support SRV resource records, also known as se

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