How to Use Active Directory

Active directories enable organizations to arrange their computer data and network and store and process information in a centralized location. This is because Active Directory is a highly scalable directory service that enables efficient management of network resources. The technology on which Active Directory is based on is fairly advanced and requires a lot of expertise to manage entire directory related tasks. Therefore, to understand how to use Active Directory, we will first start with an overview of this directory service.

The Active Directory technology is based on standard Internet protocols that help you design the exact structure of your network. It uses the DNS (Domain Name System) to organize the groups of computers into domains, which are further organized into hierarchical structures. DNS is an integral part of the Active Directory. It must be first configured in the network even before installing the Active Directory. Once DNS is configured, the Active Directory can be installed by running the Active Directory Installation Wizard. Following is the procedure:

Click Start, click Run, type dcpromo in the Open field and then click OK

When no domain exists, the wizard helps you create a new domain to configure the Active Directory. Upon the completion of the installation process, you will find that the AD is divided into a logical structure and a physical structure with a virtual partition. The logical structure comprises the domains, domain trees, forests and organization units, while the physical structure consists of sites and subnets.

The logical structures help you arrange the active directory objects and manage their network accounts along with the shared resources. The physical structures on the other hand enable you to map the physical network structure of the organization, facilitate network communication and set physical boundaries.

The Active Directory domain is a set of computers sharing common resources from the AD database, having a unique domain name and its own set of security policies and trust relationships with other network domains. Within a domain's database information, objects like user accounts, groups, computer accounts, folders, printers and shared resources are stored. A forest comprises of one or multiple domains which share common directory data.

Organizational units are logical containers or subgroups within a domain which represent the functional structure of an organization. Organizational units (OUs) are used to arrange the AD objects into groups, assign group policies to them and delegate authority to the domain resources.

Since Active Directory is the foundation of Windows distributed networks, administrators can use it for locating objects such as users, security policies, distributed components, shared resources, etc. in a network domain. Windows Active Directory is accessed through WMI by creating set of references to every object and class contained in the AD data store. By accessing the directory through WMI, administrators create WMI-enabled applications to access the Active Directory information. These interfaces in turn aids administrators to create new instances, retrieve classes and instances, modify or delete instances, query Active Directory and enumerate classes and instances.