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"Benefits of Using Active Directory in an Enterprise Environment"
Active Directory Domain Services provide secure, structured, hierarchical data storage
for objects in a network such as users, computers, printers, and services. Our network
administrators write scripts and applications that access Active Directory Domain
Services to automate common administrative tasks, such as adding users and groups,
managing printers, and setting permissions for network resources.
In the world of Active Directory, clients and servers interact in the following
manner:
- If a client wants to access a service or a resource,
it does so using the resource's Active Directory name. To locate the resource,
the client sends a standard DNS query to a dynamic DNS server by parsing the Active
Directory name and sending the DNS part of the name as a query to the dynamic DNS
server.
- The dynamic DNS server provides the network address
of the domain controller responsible for the name. This is similar to the way static
DNS currently operates, it provides an IP address in response to a name query.
- The client receives the domain controller's address
and uses it to make an LDAP query to the domain controller. The LDAP query finds
the address of the system that has the resource or service that the client requires.
- The domain controller responds with the requested information.
The client accepts this information.
- The client uses the protocols and standards that the resource or service requires
and interacts with the server providing the resource.
Active Directory's beauty is that it can scale up or down and functions equally
well providing simple directory services or more complex levels of administration.
Besides supporting LDAP, Active Directory supports HTTP.
Active Directory
Domain Services F.A.Q.
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