Designing the Active Directory Structure

Providing a Foundation for New Technologies

In addition to the fundamental advantages previously discussed, Active Directory plays an important role in your Windows 2000 deployment as an enabling infrastructure for other new technologies and capabilities, such as the following:

IntelliMirror

Windows 2000 provides a variety of Change and Configuration Management technologies. IntelliMirror and Remote Operating System Installation Management can help you reduce the amount of work and costs associated with managing and supporting clients. For more information about implementing these technologies, see "Applying Change and Configuration Management" and "Defining Client Administration and Configuration Standards" in this book.

Directory Consolidation

The scalability and extensibility of Active Directory makes it an ideal point of consolidation for applications on your network that use separate, internal directories. For example, you can:

Have complete directory consolidation, where products like Microsoft® Exchange Server shed the directory components and rely solely on Active Directory for administration and operation.
Consolidate administration, where you manage directory information in Active Directory and use directory synchronization to keep remote directories up to date.
Consolidate your existing Microsoft® Windows NT® domains, potentially reducing the total number of objects and hardware to be managed on your network.

Advanced Networking

Internet Protocol security (IPSec), networking Quality of Service features, and new remote access capabilities are examples of advanced networking features that are enabled by Active Directory.