Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Security Handbook

Active Directory Engine Components Microsoft

Microsoft chose to use the Extensible Storage Engine as the database engine; it is similar to the engine used in Exchange Server but has been improved for better performance. The ESENT database can grow theoretically to 17 terabytes, within 10 millions of directory objects.

Windows 2000 Active Directory runs as part of the Local Security Authority Service (LSASS), so it can securely manage information about the objects within the directory, such as user passwords.

The Active Directory Implementation has three layers: the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE layer), the database (DB layer), and the core Directory Service Agent (DSA layer). The DSA maintains and guarantees object identity, enforces directory ...