Networking All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 3

Dealing with Active Directory

In This Chapter

Discovering directories

Examining how Active Directory is structured

Setting up a domain controller

Creating organizational units

Active Directory is among the most important features of Windows Server, and much of your time as a network administrator will be spent keeping Active Directory neat and tidy. This chapter lays some foundation by explaining what Active Directory is and how it works.

What Directories Do

Everyone uses directory services of one type or another every day. When you look up someone’s name in a phone book, you’re using a directory service. But you’re also using a directory service when you make a call: When you enter someone’s phone number into your touch-tone phone, the phone system looks up that number in its directory to locate that person’s phone.

Almost from the very beginning, computers have had directory services. When I got started in the computer business back in the 1970s, I used IBM mainframe computers and a transaction-processing system called CICS that’s still in widespread use today. CICS ...