Active Directory (AD) is a management and security solution from Microsoft. AD allows for network-based management of user accounts, rights, permissions, file shares, printer access, desktop profiles, and other resources. AD is commonly used to implement organizational policy with respect to network access.
AD incorporates and extends several key standards for networking and security. These include:
Central to AD design is the domain. Domains can be combined into larger units called trees or forests. Domains can also be subdivided into organizational units (OU). Trees, forests, domains, and OUs are special containers that can hold and apply security policies to computers, user accounts, printers, and profiles other networked entities. AD is a specialized distributed database provisioned through servers called domain controllers. The objects available in AD are defined in a schema. The master list of all objects instantiated in a particular forest is called the global catalog.
Some subtopics related to AD implementation include: