Active Directory, 3rd Edition

Chapter 14. Upgrading to Windows Server 2003

The first version of Active Directory with Windows 2000 was surprisingly stable and robust. Microsoft does not have the best track record for initial releases of products, but they must be commended for Windows 2000 Active Directory in terms of its feature richness and reliability. That said, since Active Directory is such a complex and broad technology, there was still much room for improvement. There were some issues with scalability, such as the infamous 5,000-member soft limit with groups or the 300-site soft limit, which may have imposed artificial limitations on how you implemented Active Directory. Both of these issues have been resolved in Windows Server 2003. The default security setup with Windows 2000 Active Directory out-of-the-box was not as secure as it should have been. Signed LDAP traffic and other security enhancements have since been added into service packs, but they are provided by default with Windows Server 2003. Finally, manageability was another area that needed work in Active Directory, and in Windows Server 2003 numerous command-line utilities have been added, along with some significant improvements to the AD Administrative snap-ins.

We have highlighted a few key areas where Active Directory has been improved in Windows Server 2003, and we'll describe more new features in the next section. If you already have a Windows 2000 Active Directory infrastructure deployed, your next big decision will be whether and when ...