Preface

Active Directoy is a common repository for information about objects that reside on the network, such as users and groups, computers and printers, and applications and files. The default Active Directory schema supports numerous attributes for each object class that can be used to store a variety of information. Access Control Lists (ACLs) are also stored with objects, which allow you to maintain permissions for who can access and manage them. Having a single source for this information makes it more accessible and easier to manage. However, to accomplish this with Active Directory requires a significant amount of knowledge of such topics as LDAP, Kerberos, DNS, multi-master replication, group policies, and data partitioning, to name a few. This book will be your guide through this maze of technologies, showing you how to deploy a scalable and reliable Active Directory infrastructure.

Windows 2000 Active Directory has proven itself to be very solid in terms of features and reliability, but after several years of real-world deployments, there was much room for improvement. With Windows Server 2003, Microsoft focused on security, manageability, and scalability enhancements that are sure to make even the most recent Windows 2000 deployers consider upgrading. Fortunately, Microsoft has made the upgrade process to Windows Server 2003 Active Directory seamless. You can proceed at your own pace based on how quickly you need to upgrade.

This book is a significant update to the very successful first edition. All of the existing chapters have been brought up to date with Windows Server 2003, and eight additional chapters have been included to explain new features or concepts not covered in the first edition. This second edition describes Active Directory in depth, but not in the traditional way of going through the graphical user interface screen by screen. Instead, the book sets out to tell administrators exactly how to design, manage, and maintain a small, medium, or enterprise Active Directory infrastructure. To this end, the book is split up into three parts.

Part I introduces in general terms much of how Active Directory works, giving you a thorough grounding in its concepts. Some of the topics include Active Directory replication, the schema, application partitions, group policies, and interaction with DNS.

In Part II we describe in copious detail the issues around properly designing the directory infrastructure. Topics include in-depth looks at designing the namespace, creating a site topology, designing group policies for locking down client settings, auditing, permissions, backup and recovery, and a look at Microsoft's future direction with Directory Services.

Part III is all about managing Active Directory via automation with Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI), ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). This section covers how to create and manipulate users, groups, printers, and other objects that you may need in your everyday management of Active Directory. It also describes in depth how you can utilize the strengths of WMI and the .NET System.DirectoryServices namespace to manage Active Directory programmatically via those interfaces.

If you're looking for in-depth coverage of how to use the MMC snap-ins or Resource Kit tools, look elsewhere. However, if you want a book that lays bare the design and management of an enterprise or departmental Active Directory, you need look no further.