Introduction to Directory Service
Is This for You? The Directory Services document set is written to meet the requirements of IT professionals who are responsible for the planning, design, deployment and operations of directory services in the enterprise, corporate, or branch office environments. The readers of this document set are expected to have an understanding of its technical details; however, service-level expertise is not needed to follow the enterprise-level discussions and to understand the decisions that are made. The Directory Services document set is written to meet the requirements of IT professionals who are responsible for the planning, design, deployment and operations of directory services in the enterprise, corporate, or branch office environments. The readers of this document set are expected to have an understanding of its technical details; however, service-level expertise is not needed to follow the enterprise-level discussions and to understand the decisions that are made.
On This Page
 | Introduction |
| Blueprint |
| Planning Guide |
| Build Guide |
| Operations Guide |
Introduction
As organizations expand, the task of managing large amounts of common information in a coherent fashion while supporting its distribution and quick retrieval becomes increasingly important and more complex. Because such information is used to support the management of employees and computing resources, the efficiency of managing it has a direct impact on the organization’s cost base. The growth of an organizations personnel and supporting information technology devices requires additional IT (information technology) staff and management technologies to handle the additional authentication services, and there is a greater chance of failure because of interoperability issues with the added technologies. In addition, security is invariably weakened due to the likelihood of users writing down the numerous account and password combinations they require to perform their jobs. It becomes imperative to manage the information relating to employees and their use of computing resources with a single, coherent mechanism, one that possesses the characteristics required for the most efficient management of this information. First, it should be organized and presented in an understandable fashion. Second, a common method of querying should be supported, regardless of the type of data being requested. Finally, information with similar characteristics should be managed in a similar manner. The ways in which information is grouped and managed should be determined by the organization concerned, in ways that complement the organization's structures. Implementation of a directory-based mechanism helps reduce the costs of maintaining a computing environment, both by increasing the efficiency of operational management procedures and by reducing the risks that arise from the lack of proper mechanisms.
Further information about design and deployment of Active Directory services may be found at the following URLs:
| • | “Migrating Windows NT Server 4.0 Domains to Windows Server 2003 Active Directory” whitepaper: |
| • | Windows Server 2003 Deployment Kit: |
| • | Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit: |
| • | Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Technology Center: |
| • | “How to Upgrade Windows 2000 Domain Controllers to Windows Server 2003” Knowledge Base article: |
Blueprint
This blueprint provided the information required to understand how Active Directory can be used to provide a directory services solution for the enterprise. The design process detailed in the “Service Design” section can be used to create a comprehensive design that can fulfill the needs of the enterprise. With the additional references and guidelines provided throughout this blueprint, the reader should be confident in their ability to envision and plan a directory service using Windows Server 2003 Active Directory.
Planning Guide
This guide provided a detailed breakdown of the choices that were made in the directory service design process. It showed how the design process presented in the Directory Service Blueprint can be used to complete a fully functional and well-documented directory service solution using Active Directory in Windows Server 2003. This process was followed for both the CDC and SBO scenarios in the test labs while taking into account the overall requirements of the Contoso enterprise and its defined network topology.
Build Guide
This guide detailed the complete build process for implementing Active Directory in both the internal and perimeter forests of the Centralized Data Center scenario, as well as the configuration of Active Directory in a Satellite Branch Office scenario. Following the processes and steps outlined within this guide will ensure that DNS, both forests, domain structures, and security policies are correctly installed and configured. This guide also included detailed information about the various tests that were performed to validate the functionality of Active Directory and its interaction with the other services in the test lab. Details of the test results were presented and discussed.
Operations Guide
This guide helps readers understand the extent of operations guidance that is available for implementing the directory service of WSSRA. This guidance has been tested in a WSSRA environment and the project team deferred to this guidance as the authoritative source of operations content.