Understanding Active Directory Services (Strategic Technologies)

Among the features included in the upcoming Windows 2000 Server, Active Directory is perhaps the most exciting. It has the potential to make distributed data structures far easier to implement under Windows, and it takes advantage of some neat technologies to manage versioning and synchronization. Understanding Active Directory Services explains what Active Directory is, what it can do, how it works, and what it means to software developers and systems administrators.

In general, this book is a naming of parts. The author goes to some trouble to explain all the new Active Directory terminology (domain forest, discretionary access control list, and update sequence number, to cite a few). He also provides insight into the Active Directory architecture, explaining which parts talk to which others, when, and how. Very good conceptual diagrams help with this chore. Though it's light on detailed procedures and screen shots, this book does provide as much procedural information as can be expected about a product that's still in beta. You'll be able to read technical articles about Active Directory when you finish this book, plus you'll be prepared to develop an Active Directory deployment plan when the operational details of Windows 2000 become clearer. --David Wall

Topics covered: The Active Directory capabilities of Microsoft Windows 2000 Server. Coverage includes architecture, namespaces, domains, schema, replication, synchronization, the details of the trust model with Kerberos certificate support, and the Active Directory Services Interface (ADSI).