Overview of Active Directory Domain Services

Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) is a directory service from Microsoft that stores information about different network objects , such as printers ,databases and users at a centralized location and makes this information available to all the users of the network.

For example :

 AD DS stores data related to different user accounts , such as ids , passwords and email ids at a central location and provides secure access of these information to the authorized users.

I am going to give a brief introduction to various elements of AD, such as domain controller - DC , domain , tree ,forest , trust relationship ,organizational unit - OU and site that collectively form an AD infrastructure. it also explores the forest and domain functional levels.

Lets begin with a brief of the AD infrastructure.

Exploring Active Directory Domain Services

Some benefits of AD DS are as follows:

- It follows a hierarchical organizational structure

- It provides fault tolerance , which means the ability of a system to provide services even in the event of a component failure

- It provides a single point of access to network resources

-It creates a trust relationship with external networks running previous versions  of AD

Windows Server 2008 introduces the following new features with regard to AD :

- RODC - Read-Only Domain Controller

- Server Core

- Fine-grained password policies

- Improved graphical user interface - GUI

- Improved auditing of AD modifications and deletions

- Ability to start and stop AD as a service without the need to restart the DC

Elements of Active Directory

- Domain Controller-DC

- Domain

- Tree

- Forest

- Trust Relationship

- Organizational Unit - OU

- Site