Good day, Cloud Gurus, and welcome back.
In this lesson,
we're going to review some of the fundamental concepts
for Active Directory Domain Services.
Let's take a look at what we're going to cover.
First up, we're going to recap
some of the absolute fundamentals
of Active Directory Domain Services,
and we're going to start
at a fairly high level in this lesson.
And then, in the following section,
we're going to dive much deeper into many of these concepts.
And then, next up in this lesson,
we'll take a really high level look at domains and forests.
Now, there's a little bit to cover in this lesson,
so let's get started.
Let's start with some of the key concepts
for Active Directory Domain Services.
When you deploy a Windows computer,
be it a server or a workstation,
local accounts are created on that computer.
And there are also groups on that computer
that these users are members of.
These users and groups are granted permissions,
which we call authorization,
to perform functions on that computer.
And these users can only be used
to access resources on that computer.
If you had multiple computers,
you might have multiple user accounts,
and even worse than that,
you might have multiple passwords
for each of those accounts.
To improve the management of these users and computers,
Microsoft provides Active Directory Domain Services.
Active Directory Domain Services
really forms the foundation
for enterprise networks that run Windows.
It allows you to centralize your user accounts,
computer accounts, and groups
in a database known as the Active Directory database.
The Active Directory database is organized into a hierarchy,
meaning you can organize it as required
into a tree structure
to assist with managing the objects
in the Active Directory database.
The Active Directory database
is hosted by domain controllers,
and the domain controller is a Windows server role.
Computers join the domain
and then trust domain controllers to authenticate the users.
Authentication is basically the process
of verifying who or what something is,
and that's why they're called domain controllers.
They control and verify everything that requires access
to resources that are protected by Active Directory.
But you might be thinking, why domain?
Well, computers and users find the domain
using the domain name.
Every Active Directory domain
is represented by a unique domain name.
Typically, the Active Directory domain name
will be a subdomain of the company's external domain,
but in some older Active Directory environments,
you might see in a weird name like company.local.
That's not recommended anymore,
but old decisions are sometimes hard to change.
So, you might see a domain name
like company.local where you work.
Now to find the domain,
Active Directory joined computers
rely heavily on Domain Name System,
more commonly known as DNS.
And we're going to review DNS fundamentals
in the very next lesson.
Now, Active Directory can also be used
to apply configuration and security settings
to users and devices.
And this includes things like
certificates for secure communication
and software installations.
Now, Active Directory Domain Services
requires a private secure enterprise network.
Now, most organizations have
Active Directory Domain Services,
but those that are highly mobile
or are born in the cloud and fairly new organizations
might not have Active Directory Domain Services.
If you were starting a company today,
you would have to consider
if Active Directory Domain Services
is right for your company,
but if your company is large or has existed for some time,
it's very likely they'll have
Active Directory Domain Services deployed.
And because so many companies
have Active Directory Domain Services deployments,
that's what makes understanding it so important.
In the following section,
we'll explore all of these concepts in much more detail.
Now, next up, let's briefly review domains and forests.
Now, this is just one more concept I'd like to cover now,
and then we'll dive deeper into this concept
in the next section.
Now, we've already looked at the concept
of an Active Directory domain.
Each domain has one or more domain controllers.
But, it's also important to know
that an Active Directory domain exists
within in an Active Directory forest.
Now, the name forest might seem odd at the moment
but I'll explain why it's called forest in the next section.
So, please hold that thought.
Now, there can be multiple Active Directory domains
within a forest,
and each domain will have its own domain controllers.
And you can have multiple forests,
and each forest has its own domains.
Now, that escalated pretty quickly.
Now, ideally, each organization
will just have one forest and one domain,
but in my experience, that's almost never the case.
Even the smallest companies I've worked for
have had multiple domains due to mergers, acquisitions,
or migrations or other business events,
but we'll cover all of this in more detail
in the next section.
I'm just getting you a little warmed up for what's to come.
All right, that's it for now.
Let's wrap up with a bit of a summary of what we've covered.
All Windows computers have local users
and groups that can be used to authorize access
to resources that exist on that computer.
Active Directory can be used to centrally store users,
computers, and groups in the Active Directory database.
Domain controllers store the Active Directory database
and provide authentication for the Active Directory domain.
And, it's important to know
that Active Directory can also be used
to distribute security and configuration settings,
including things like certificates and software.
And finally, it's important to know
that Active Directory domains exist within a forest
and a forest can have more than one domain.
All right, thanks for being with me in this lesson.
I hope you've found this little recap useful,
and I look forward to seeing you in the next lesson.