Active Directory Services in Windows 2000’

Active Directory Services in Windows 2000

Abstract

We use directory service to uniquely identify users and resources on a network. Active Directory in Microsoft Windows 2000 is a significant enhancement over the directory services provided in previous versions of Windows. Active Directory provides a single point of network management, allowing us to add, remove and relocate users and different resources easily.
Windows 2000 uses Active Directory to provide directory services. It is important to understand the overall purpose of Active Directory and the key features it provides. Understanding the interactions of Active Directory architectural components provides the basis for understanding how Active Directory stores and retrieves the data. This seminar concentrates on the Active Directory functions, its features and architecture.

Introduction

Windows 2000 is a logical grouping of networked computers that share a central directory database containing security and user account information .This directory database is known as directory and is the database portion of Active Directory, Active Directory is nothing but the Windows 2000 directory service. In a domain, security and administration are centralized because the directory resides on a domain controllers, which manage all security aspects of user-domain interactions.
Active Directory also provides a method for designing a directory structure that meets the needs of our network.
Active Directory is an enterprise-class directory service that is scalable, built from the ground up using Internet-standard technologies, and fully integrated at operating system level. Active Directory simplifies administration and makes it easier for users to find resources. It provides a wide range of features and capabilities. It includes group policies, Scalability without complexity, support for multiple authentication protocols, and the use of Internet Standards.
Active Directory services are secure, distributed partitioned and replicated. It is designed to work well in any size installation, from a single server with a few hundred objects to thousands of servers with millions of objects. Active Directory services adds many new features that make it easy to navigate and manage large amounts of information, saving time for both administrators and end users,.