Active Directory 4e: Designing, Deploying, and Running Active Directory - Softcover

Desmond, Brian; Richards, Joe; Allen, Robbie; Lowe-Norris, Alistair G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 059652059X ISBN 13: 9780596520595

Publisher: O′Reilly, 2008

Synopsis

To help you take full advantage of Active Directory, this fourth edition of this bestselling book gives you a thorough grounding in Microsoft's network directory service. With Active Directory, you'll learn how to design, manage, and maintain an AD infrastructure, whether it's for a small business network or a multinational enterprise with thousands of resources, services, and users.

This detailed and highly accurate volume covers Active Directory from its origins in Windows 2000 through Windows Server 2008. But unlike typical dry references, Active Directory presents concepts in an easy-to-understand, narrative style. With this book, you will:

• Get a complete review of all the new Windows 2008 features
• Learn how Active Directory works with Exchange and PowerShell
• Take advantage of the updated scripting and programming chapters to automate AD tasks
• Learn how to be more efficient with command-line tools
• Grasp concepts easily with the help of numerous screenshots and diagrams

Ideal for administrators, IT professionals, project managers, and programmers alike, Active Directory is not only for people getting started with AD, it's also for experienced users who need to stay up-to-date with the latest AD features in Windows Server 2008. It is no wonder this guide is the bestselling AD resource available.

About this title

Product Description

Unusual book

Review

Windows 2000 Active Directory is a notably authoritative and engaging guide to Microsoft's Active Directory (AD). This book can serve as a trustworthy guide for any administrator or developer planning to make the move to the new Windows and this powerful directory standard.

Articulate and technically astute, the author adopts the role of a trusted advisor on the best ways to handle the move from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows 2000, with an expert's view of designing the layout of your company's Active Directory schema. In realistic terms, he shows you how AD can coexist with UNIX directories. The book not only provides a collection of screenshots (though there are hands-on tutorials for specific tasks), but also a nicely in-depth tour of what Internet directories are and what advantages Active Directory offers. The author's case studies on sample domains and organisation units (OUs) for sample companies, including a model global corporation, will help any network administrator cope with the design of even the most complex directories. His hints for limiting "domains" and favouring the more flexible "organisational units" (OUs) will also help administrators think in Windows 2000 terms.

Later sections of the book delve into Active Directory Services Interface (ASDI) scripting using Windows Script Host (WSH), Visual Basic, and even ASPs for browser-based administration. Assuming very little programming background, the author provides tips and sample scripts for a variety of common administrative tasks, such as adding new users, changing passwords and the like. This focus on the practical side of administration rounds out an extremely useful guide to Windows 2000. This technically savvy book can definitely simplify the life of any administrator, manager, or developer upgrading to the latest Windows and who needs to understand and use AD effectively. --Richard Dragan, Amazon.com

Edition details

• Publisher: O′Reilly
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 059652059X
• ISBN 13: 9780596520595
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 823