Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services™ (AD DS) directory service is the distributed directory service that is included with Microsoft Windows Server™ operating systems. Microsoft Active Directory™ enables centralized, secure management of an entire network, which might span a building, a city, or multiple locations throughout the world. Microsoft Active Directory includes the following; Microsoft Active Directory DS™ on a Windows Server™ Network, Microsoft Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services™ (AD LDS), Structure and storage technologies, domain controller roles, replication technologies, search and publication technologies, and installation, upgrade, and migration technologies. Remote administration—you can connect to any domain controller remotely from any Microsoft Windows™ based computer that has administrative tools installed. storage for application data—Microsoft Active Directory DS™ provides a central location to store data that is shared between applications and with applications that need to distribute their data across entire Windows networks.

A directory service provides a centralized location to store information in a distributed environment about networked devices and services and the people who use them. A directory service also implements the services that make this information available to users, computers, and applications. A directory service is both a database storage system (directory store) and a set of services that provide the means to securely add, modify, delete, and locate data in the directory store. Microsoft Active Directory™ provides—a central location for network administration and delegation of administrative authority. You have access to objects representing all network users, devices, and resources and the ability to group objects for ease of management and application of security and Group Policy. Information security and single sign—on for user access to network resources—tight integration with security eliminates costly tracking of accounts for authentication and authorization between systems. A single user name and password combination can identify each network user, and this identity follows the user throughout the network.

Microsoft Active Directory DS On Microsoft Windows Server

Microsoft Active Directory DS™ is the information hub of the operating system. The following figure shows Microsoft Active Directory DS™ as the focal point of the Windows Server™ network used to manage identities and broker relationships between distributed resources so they can work together. Users and administrators can use desktop tools to search Microsoft Active Directory DS™. By default, searches are directed to the global catalog, which provides forest wide search capabilities. The Internet standard computer location system. Microsoft Active Directory DS™ uses DNS to implement an IP—based naming system so that Microsoft Active Directory DS™ services and domain controllers are locatable over standard IP both on intranets and the Internet. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) support; LDAP is the industry standard directory access protocol, making Microsoft Active Directory DS™ widely accessible to management and query applications. Microsoft Active Directory DS™ includes one or more domains, each with one or more domain controllers, enabling you to scale the directory to meet any network requirements.

Microsoft Active Directory DS

Internal directory: Used within the corporate network for publishing information about users and resources within the enterprise. A company’s internal directory may be accessible to employees when they are outside the company network using a secure connection such as a virtual private network (VPN) connection, but it is not accessible to non—employees. External Directory—these are directories typically located on servers in the perimeter network or demilitarized zone (DMZ) at the boundary between the corporate local area network (LAN) and the public Internet. External directories are typically used to store information about customers, clients, and business partners who access external applications or services. They are also made available to customers, clients, and business partners to provide them with selected business information such as catalogs and so on. Application Directory—application directories store “private” directory data that is relevant only to the application in a local directory, perhaps on the same server as the application, without requiring any additional configuration to Microsoft Active Directory™. The personalization data, which is only interesting to the portal application and does not need to be widely replicated, can be stored solely in the directory associated with the application.

Features And Benefits

A domain controller is a server that has the The schema is a set of objects and rules that provide the structure requirements for Microsoft Active Directory DS™ objects. You can modify the schema to implement new types of objects or object properties. server role installed. When you install Microsoft Windows Server™ on a computer, you can choose to configure a server role for that computer. When you want to create a new forest, a new domain, or an additional domain controller in an existing domain, you configure the server as a domain controller by installing Microsoft AD DS™. By default, a domain controller stores one domain directory partition consisting of information about the domain in which it is located, plus the schema and configuration directory partitions for the entire forest. Successful operation of an Microsoft AD DS™ forest depends on clients and services being able to locate domain controllers. The success of domain controller location depends on the registration of information in DNS and the availability of that information. Microsoft AD DS™ uses DNS to locate networked computers by resolving computer names to IP addresses.