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Concept
Active Directory
Summary
Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. Windows Server operating systems include it as a set of processes and services. Originally, only centralized domain management used Active Directory. However, it ultimately became an umbrella title for various directory-based identity-related services.
A domain controller is a server running the Active Directory Domain Service (AD DS) role. It authenticates and authorizes all users and computers in a Windows domain-type network, assigning and enforcing security policies for all computers and installing or updating software. For example, when a user logs into a computer part of a Windows domain, Active Directory checks the submitted username and password and determines whether the user is a system administrator or a non-admin user. Furthermore, it allows the management and storage of information, provides authentication and authorization mechanisms, and establishes a framework to deploy other related services: Certificate Services, Active Directory Federation Services, Lightweight Directory Services, and Rights Management Services.
Active Directory uses Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) versions 2 and 3, Microsoft's version of Kerberos, and DNS.
Robert R. King defined it in the following way:
"A domain represents a database. That database holds records about network services-things like computers, users, groups and other things that use, support, or exist on a network. The domain database is, in effect, Active Directory."
Like many information-technology efforts, Active Directory originated out of a democratization of design using Requests for Comments (RFCs). The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) oversees the RFC process and has accepted numerous RFCs initiated by widespread participants. For example, LDAP underpins Active Directory. Also, X.500 directories and the Organizational Unit preceded the Active Directory concept that uses those methods. The LDAP concept began to emerge even before the founding of Microsoft in April 1975, with RFCs as early as 1971.
Official source
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