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Directory services is a shared information infrastructure for locating, managing, administrating and organizing common items and network resources, which can include volumes, folders, files, users, groups, devices, and other objects. A Directory Service is an important component of a network operating system. It is the central information repository for service delivery platform. You can use the Active Directory installation wizard discord to add a domain controller to an existing environment, create a new forest structure, add a child domain to an existing domain, add a new domain ere to an existing forest.
Active Directory is designed to enable scalability by handling organizations Of any size from small business to global enterprises. When Active Directory is installed and configured, it includes a number of GUI and command line tools that can be used to administer network services, resources, and security. When you configure a Windows 2008 Server as an Active Directory domain controller you get the administrative tools of Active Directory Users and Computers, Active Directory Domains and Trusts, Active Directory Sites and Services, and DADS edit tools that are added to the Administrative tools folder.
Active Directory provides a single point of management for network resources. It uses a single sign on to allow access to network resources located on any server within the domain. The user account is the primary means by which people using Active Directory network will access resources. To gain access to the network, users must authenticate to a network using a specific user account. There are three types of user accounts hat can be created in Windows Server 2008, local accounts, domain accounts, and built-in user accounts. Groups are implemented to allow administrators to assign permission to multiple users simultaneously.
A group is a collection of users or computer accounts that is used to simplify the assignment of permission to neeјark resources. The Windows Server 2008 supports three domain functional levels, depending on the operating system of the domain controllers that are deployed in the domain. As you raise the domain functional level, additional functionality becomes available within Active Directory. Within Active Directory, domain functional levels are configured on a per-domain basis, this allows different domains within the forest to be be at different phases in the process of transitioning to Windows Server 2008.
Before you can raise the domain functional level, you need to ensure that all domain controllers within that domain are running the required version of Windows operating system. You can configure Active Directory on any server that has been configured with a Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Server 2008 based operating System. You can raise the domain and forest functional levels within Active Directory after you have retired any domain controllers that are running down level operating systems such as Windows 2000.
Windows Server 2008 provides several new enhancements to assist in raising domain and forest functional levels. Directory Services provides the advantages of adding security of having a single security policy and set of administrators with a single domain. It is easier to enforce organization wide security policies, you can use single group containers with a ingle GAP management policy that need only be defined once and can be used throughout the entire enterprise without the need to manually export and import group policy objects.
There is better resiliency because every location has a full domain backup. There is increased fault tolerance, manageability is easy, user productivity is increased, it is easy to do administration and control functions. However, the directory services infrastructure is costly to install, plus it takes good planning to configure and it can be a complex structure for some users to use. The Windows Server 008 contains features to help you create backups and perform a recovery of your operating system, applications, and data.
The Windows Server backup tools including the MAC snap in, the waveband command line tool and the Windows powerlessly commands for Windows server backups. The Windows recovery environment which includes the Windows Complete PC restore, Windows memory Diagnostic tool and command prompt. Also shadow copies can be used to create copies of files or folders on a shared resource. The Backup schedule Wizard can be used to create scheduled backups to be run automatically at set times.
The Recovery Wizard in the Windows Server Backup snap-in can be used to recover files, folders, applications, and volumes. A Windows setup disc can be used to access the Windows recovery environment, and a backup created with Windows Server backup can recover the operating system or the full server. The knowledge and experience gained in this course will help me to work with the Windows Server 2008 operating system. I will be able to configure user access to network resources and how to manage and configure directory services.
This course has provided me with a better understanding of how to create a replication topology. How to create Active Directory sites and subnets.