What Is Active Directory Used For

Active Directory (Advertizement) is a database and set of services that connect users with the network resources they demand to go their work done.

The database (or directory) contains critical information about your environment, including what users and computers there are and who's allowed to do what. For example, the database might list 100 user accounts with details similar each person's chore title, phone number and password. It will also tape their permissions.

The services command much of the activity that goes on in your IT environment. In particular, they make sure each person is who they merits to be (authentication), commonly by checking the user ID and password they enter, and let them to access only the data they're immune to use (authority).

Read on to learn more than about the benefits of Active Directory, how it works and what'southward in an Active Directory database.

Benefits of Active Directory

Active Directory simplifies life for administrators and end users while enhancing security for organizations. Administrators savor centralized user and rights management, also as centralized control over computer and user configurations through the AD Grouping Policy characteristic. Users can authenticate once and and then seamlessly access any resources in the domain for which they're authorized (single sign-on). Plus, files are stored in a central repository where they can be shared with other users to ease collaboration, and backed up properly past It teams to ensure business organization continuity.

How does Active Directory work?

How does Agile Directory work?

The chief Active Directory service is Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), which is function of the Windows Server operating system. The servers that run AD DS are called domain controllers (DCs). Organizations normally accept multiple DCs, and each one has a re-create of the directory for the unabridged domain. Changes made to the directory on one domain controller — such as password update or the deletion of a user account — are replicated to the other DCs so they all stay upwards to date. A Global Itemize server is a DC that stores a complete copy of all objects in the directory of its domain and a partial re-create of all objects of all other domains in the wood; this enables users and applications to find objects in any domain of their forest. Desktops, laptops and other devices running Windows (rather than Windows Server) can exist part of an Active Directory environs but they do not run Ad DS. Advertizing DS relies on several established protocols and standards, including LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), Kerberos and DNS (Domain Name Organization).

Information technology'south important to understand that Active Directory is just for on-premises Microsoft environments. Microsoft environments in the cloud use Azure Active Directory, which serves the same purposes equally its on-prem namesake. AD and Azure AD are separate but can work together to some caste if your organization has both on-bounds and cloud It environments (a hybrid deployment).

How is Active Directory structured?

Advertizement has three primary tiers: domains, trees and forests. A domain is a group of related users, computers and other Advertisement objects, such every bit all the Advert objects for your company's head office. Multiple domains tin can be combined into a tree, and multiple trees tin can be grouped into a woods.

Keep in heed that a domain is a management boundary. The objects for a given domain are stored in a single database and tin can be managed together. A wood is a security boundary. Objects in different forests are not able to collaborate with each other unless the administrators of each forest create a trust between them. For example, if you lot take multiple disjointed business units, you probably want to create multiple forests.

What's in the Active Directory database?

What's in the Agile Directory database?

The Agile Directory database (directory) contains information about the Advertizement objects in the domain. Common types of AD objects include users, computers, applications, printers and shared folders. Some objects can contain other objects (which is why you lot'll see Advert described as "hierarchical"). In item, organizations ofttimes simplify administration by organizing Advertizement objects into organizational units (OUs) and streamline security by putting users into groups. These OUs and groups are themselves objects stored in the directory.

Objects have attributes. Some attributes are obvious and some are more behind the scenes. For example, a user object typically has attributes similar the person'south name, password, department and email address, but as well attributes about people never see, such as its unique Globally Unique Identifier (GUID), Security Identifier (SID), last logon time and group membership.

Databases are structured, which means at that place is a blueprint that determines what types of information they store and how that data is organized. This blueprint is called a schema. Active Directory is no exception: Its schema contains formal definitions of every object form that can exist created in the Active Directory woods and every attribute that tin can exist in an Active Directory object. AD comes with a default schema, but administrators tin can modify it to adjust business needs. The key thing to know is that it's all-time to plan the schema advisedly up forepart; considering of the central role Advert plays in authentication and authorizations, changing the schema of the AD database later can dramatically disrupt your concern.