Special Edition Using Microsoft Active Directory

Foreword

I joined the Windows NT Server team in early 1995 to work on directory services. My interest in directory services grew out of experiences in developing distributed systems. A distributed system needs a naming service that the elements can use to locate each other. I wanted a naming service that was flexible, secure, and scalable—more than that I wanted a naming service that supported rich query. I saw working on the project that produced Windows 2000 and Active Directory as an opportunity to produce just such a naming service.

Directory services and naming services are often viewed as different animals, but they are in fact the same thing. Many people view a directory service as a store of name and address information about people, ...