Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Security Handbook

Concepts of Active Directory

With Active Directory, you have a lot of stuff to take into consideration when planning. For instance, you must know that the flexibility gained with the implementation of a X.500- compliant directory service will carry some complexity, which means time. You will spend time in the office planning the Active Directory design with tons of open books (hey, maybe this one!) and tons of documents. Active Directory is a huge beast, but after you gain confidence with him, believe me, you will feel the strange sensation of riding the beast.

To clarify the terms that Active Directory uses, I describe some of the most important concepts.

Schema

Earlier you saw that Active Directory consists of objects and object classes. These ...