Active Directory® for Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003 Technical Reference

Chapter 8. Active Directory Security

One of the primary reasons for deploying a directory service like Active Directory is to provide security on the corporate network. Every company stores business-critical information on file servers on the network. Managing secure access to the information is critical to ensure that only properly authorized users have access to the data. Almost all companies deploy e-mail servers such as Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server and want to provide users with secure access to their mailboxes. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory provides this level of security.

This chapter begins by introducing the basics of Active Directory security. Active Directory directory service uses several basic building blocks and ...