🧩Idea of Windows Active Directory Domain Services

What is Active Directory Domain Service?

What is Active Directory Domain Service ?

Active Directory, or AD, is a system developed by Microsoft to help manage networks, especially in Windows environments. It acts like a digital phonebook, storing information about users, computers, and other resources, and controls who can access what. It’s commonly used in businesses to keep everything organized and secure.

Active Directory is both a database and a directory service that centrally manages network resources, including users, computers, and security policies, within a Windows environment. It enables administrators to control access to resources, manage user accounts, and enforce security settings across the network. As a database, it stores identities and their information, while as a directory service, it facilitates authentication and authorization, ensuring users can access only what they’re permitted to.

AD organizes data hierarchically using the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and is typically deployed on-premises, making it a static directory service with adaptive features from Dynamic Directory Services.

Core Components and Functions

The core of Active Directory is Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), which provides the foundation for managing network objects. Other services extend its functionality:

Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS):
- Manages user accounts, computer accounts, and other objects, authenticating and authorizing users and computers.
- Stores directory data in a structured, hierarchical organization, making it available to network users and administrators.
- Includes a replication service that distributes directory data across domain controllers, ensuring consistency. All domain controllers in a domain contain a complete copy, and changes are replicated, managed by the Knowledge Consistency Checker (KCC) using site links.
Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS):
- Establishes an on-premises public key infrastructure, managing digital certificates for secure communication, requiring AD DS infrastructure.
Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS):
- Provides single sign-on (SSO) using protocols like SAML, OAuth, and OpenID Connect for web-based services, extending AD DS for cross-network authentication.
Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS):

Rights Management Services (RMS) is a Microsoft technology that helps protect digital information (documents, emails, etc.) from unauthorized access, copying, printing, forwarding, or editing , even after it leaves your organization.

Offers information rights management using encryption and selective denial, controlling document access, previously known as Rights Management Services.

Core Components of RMS

Component

Description

RMS Client

Installed on a user’s device; applies and enforces protection.

RMS Server

Issues licenses and encryption keys; verifies user rights.

AD RMS Templates

Predefined policies like “Confidential – Read Only”.

Active Directory

RMS integrates with AD to identify users and roles.

Types of Rights You Can Control

Permission

Description

View

Allow user to only view, no edits

Edit

Allow content modification

Copy

Allow/disallow copying text or data

Print

Control whether printing is allowed

Forward (emails)

Prevent forwarding sensitive emails

Expire Content

Make files unreadable after a set time

AD DS Logical and Physical Structure

Active Directory (AD) Logical Structure

Active Directory (AD) Logical Structure is a hierarchical model used to organize and manage network resources in a Windows domain environment. It provides a framework for structuring objects such as users, computers, groups, and other resources in a way that simplifies administration, enhances security, and supports scalability.
The logical structure in Active Directory defines how objects are organized in a human-readable and administrative way , it's not about physical hardware (like servers), but how AD looks and behaves to administrators.