Software Architect's Handbook

Using domain authentication

Once enterprises started developing applications that lived in their own local networks, it made sense to leverage domain authentication. Rather than have each application implement authentication independently, the functionality was centralized. On Windows servers, the domain controller (DC), along with a directory service such as Active Directory (AD), can manage resources and users for the entire domain. When users log on to a company network, they are authenticated in that domain and authorization can be accomplished using the attributes of the user profile. For intranet applications, this approach works well and is still popular.