Active Directory, Second Edition

Preface

Active Directoy is a common repository for information about objects that reside on the network, such as users and groups, computers and printers, and applications and files. The default Active Directory schema supports numerous attributes for each object class that can be used to store a variety of information. Access Control Lists (ACLs) are also stored with objects, which allow you to maintain permissions for who can access and manage them. Having a single source for this information makes it more accessible and easier to manage. However, to accomplish this with Active Directory requires a significant amount of knowledge of such topics as LDAP, Kerberos, DNS, multi-master replication, group policies, and data partitioning, to name a few. This book will be your guide through this maze of technologies, showing you how to deploy a scalable and reliable Active Directory infrastructure.

Windows 2000 Active Directory has proven itself to be very solid in terms of features and reliability, but after several years of real-world deployments, there was much room for improvement. With Windows Server 2003, Microsoft focused on security, manageability, and scalability enhancements that are sure to make even the most recent Windows 2000 deployers consider upgrading. Fortunately, Microsoft has made the upgrade process to Windows Server 2003 Active Directory seamless. You can proceed at your own pace based on how quickly you need to upgrade.

This book is a significant update to the very ...