The Logical Structure of Active Directory

Active Directory provides a means for designing a directory structure that should meet whatever needs an organization may have. However, because of the flexibility in design that it offers, an organization’s business structure should be examined prior to installing Active Directory, so that their current and future needs may be met.

In Active Directory, resources are organized in a logical structure, and this grouping of resources logically enables a resource to be found by its name rather than by its physical location.

In previous versions of Microsoft Windows NT the logical structure was the domain, which contained user accounts, computer accounts, printers, files and applications, with a limitation of approximately 40,000 objects. Administration of these resources could not be divided any further, without having to create new domains and manually creating the trusts between them. With Windows 2000, which can store billions of objects, resources can be organized and administered more granularly by utilizing the following logical structures.

●        Objects

●        Organizational Units

●        Domains

●        Trees

●        Forests