OBTAIN AN IP ADDRESS BY USING DHCPBEFORE YOU BEGIN THIS EXERCISE, YOU...

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Lesson 1: Overview of Active Directory

Most computers running Windows XP Professional on large networks are clients in an

Active Directory domain running Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003. Much

like a phone book acts as a directory of people’s phone numbers and street addresses,

Active Directory acts as a directory for resources on a network. Active Directory cata-

logs information about all the objects on a network, including users, computers, and

printers, and makes that information available throughout a network. Active Directory

provides a consistent way to name, find, manage, and secure information about these

resources.

After this lesson, you will be able to■ Identify the advantages of Active Directory■ Describe the logical structure of Active Directory■ Describe the physical structure of Active Directory■ Describe replication within an Active Directory siteEstimated lesson time: 15 minutes

The Advantages of Active Directory

In a workgroup environment, each computer running Windows XP Professional is

responsible for maintaining its own security database. Local user accounts are used to

log on to the computer and to control access to resources on the computer. Security

and administration in a workgroup are distributed. You must create local user accounts

on each computer, and although you can often manage a computer remotely, you must

manage each computer separately. The larger the network you are working with, the

more overhead this distributed management creates.

Active Directory simplifies the security and administration of resources throughout a

network (including the computers that are part of the network) by providing a single

point of administration for all objects on the network. Active Directory organizes

resources hierarchically in domains, which are logical groupings of servers and other

network resources. Each domain includes one or more domain controllers. A domain

controller is a computer running Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003 on

which Active Directory is installed. The domain controller stores a complete replica of

the domain directory. To simplify administration, all domain controllers in the domain

are peers. You can make changes to any domain controller, and the updates are repli-

cated to all other domain controllers in the domain.