Mastering Windows Server® 2008 Networking Foundations

Chapter 15. Things to Come: A Peek at Active Directory

If you've made it this far, then let me thank you again. Of all the sorts of books that I like writing, my favorite are books that introduce people to an area of the world.

But what, exactly, have we introduced you to? Well, in a sense, we've introduced you to some of the firmament of networks, the infrastructure that every network needs, no matter whether it's built on technology from Microsoft, Sun, Linux, or whatever. And I hope you don't mind that despite the fact this is a "beginner" book, we've gotten pretty nitty-gritty about things like the chapters about Windows storage, DNS, and DHCP.

In another sense, though, this book has laid the foundation for the most integral, fundamental technology in a Microsoft network— Active Directory. We'll take that up in earnest in the second book of the series, Mastering Windows Server 2008: Essential Technologies (and please forgive me if it's not yet on the shelves once you finish this volume — please understand that I'm working very hard to make sure that it's worth your time, and that takes time!), but it just wouldn't feel right to end the book without at least a short discussion about what AD is, and what it'll do for you.

Active Directory is Microsoft's offering in the field of network software called directory services. We discussed the value of directory services a bit back in Chapter 3, but it's worth repeating and extending some of that.

Put simply, directory services mainly exist ...