In this era, the usage of the software is ubiquitous, and the active directory services and active directory management tools provided by it are of utmost importance. If you are working with a domain controller, then you can expect active directory to store your information at the server.
Basically, the directory is defined as books or websites that list organizations or individuals in alphabetical or thematical order. A directory is a place where you put in your resources in a sequential manner or specific order.
- What is active directory?
Active directory is a live directory or database that stores user’s accounts (in their passwords), computers, printers, file shares, security groups, and the respective permissions. A group could be made of users, computers, printers, or file shares. Now the reason why we use the groups with the active directory is frequently for security purposes.
The main purpose of active directory is to handle security authentication across the domain. If you need to work in the IT sector, you must understand its concept. Now, the one way by which active directory does this is by allowing only registered and authorized users to log in over network computers. ad reports is well-known features of active directory tools services.
Additionally, active directory also provides centralized security management of network resources by storing user accounts in passwords in one place instead of storing it on each individual computer. About ad user export is most common task you need to know about active directory is to reset passwords and create or delete users’ accounts.
For example, every time a new employee is hired by the company, they need login credentials. At that time, you need to create their account and help them to log in for the very first time. A password will be provided to them for the first-time login activity; after that, they can reset their passwords and can create a new one as per their choice.
- Core components of AD logical architecture
- Object – Object is the smallest entity within the active directory.
- Domain – It’s simply the collection of all the objects. So, all the objects will fall under a certain domain. And even the domain name will be derived by the domain name server (DNS). Thus, the active directory server and domain name server go hand in hand.
- OU – Organisational units are the only general-purpose containers available to administrators in the active directory. Ultimately, objects are organized under OUs.
- Tree – A hierarchical database stores data into a tree-like structure. Additionally, Domains within the active directory tree have a transitive trust relationship.
- Forest – A global catalog stores copies of active directory objects in the forests.
- Advantages and disadvantages of not having an active directory
If you don’t have an Active Directory, then you need to create a low-core user account on each computer in your company. Also, each time when you wish to reset the password for a specific user, you would need to do it on each computer that they have an account on. On the other hand, if you have an active directory, then you just need to reset the password only at the domain controller, and automatically the password would be reset on each computer that contains the account of that specific user.
Can you imagine that you have 5000 computers in your company and you need to change a password on one computer, then isn’t it crazy that you will have to change them or reset the passwords in all the computers, which resembles a huge loss of money and time as well. Thus, the role of active directory is very fruitful for us, especially for business purposes.
- Why we need active directory in our business, or what are the benefits of Active Directory?
If your business or organization is running up to 20 users, then you can work in a group. But if the number of users is more than 20 or more, then you must adopt active directory services. Active directory services are useful for all those who need to centralize authentication, authorization, and administration as centralization provides more security for one’s business or organization, even it stores user’s information like a computer, printer, users, user groups, organizational units, and password information. Basically, the active directory is for the ease of security and administration. ad user export are also very common to be used.
In fact, you can also create a private domain for your business or organization after the installation of active directory domain services. You can choose the domain as per your requirement like .com, .net, .local, etc. You can also configure the centralized group policies for domain users and network resources after installing the active directory domain services.
- Active directory tools services
Active directory tools services consist of various active directory services like :
- Certificate Services
- AD Federation Services
- AD Domain Services
- Lightweight directory services
- Right management services
Let’s explore more about these services offered by active directory tools-
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- Certificate services – After installing active directory certificate services, you can create your private certificates for your organization, Certificates used for security purposes.
- AD Federation services – active directory federation services are used for single sign-on purposes ( SSO), and SSO is used for internet-based applications, authorization, and authentication.
- AD domain services – After installing active directory domain services, you can implement your private domain. It provides centralized authentication, authorization for your domain resources and users.
- Lightweight directory services – Lightweight directory services is lightweight directory access protocol. Lightweight directory access protocol makes active directory more accessible. It provides a mechanism used to connect to, search and modify internet directories.
- Right Management services – As its name active directory right management services, it’s all about the right management centrally. Thus, it increases the security strategy of your organization as it protects documents using information right management (IRM).
- Concluding words
From the above information, you might have understood the concept of Active Directory. What are its uses, benefits, and how are its tools beneficial for us? To summarise the wide concept of an active directory, let’s take a real-life example of a menu when you go for dinner.
There you might have witnessed several items under specific categories arranged in a particular and specific manner; similar is the basic rule of the active directory as it lets the enterprise or company organize all their resources in a well-established way very easily in one place.