Active Directory Design

Andrew was involved at the leading-edge of Active Directory design in 2000 and is a member of an exclusive club being among the first 2,000 people in the world to achieve the MCSE AD 2000 certification. Andrew was at the forefront of developing the concept of an 'Active Directory Design' and articulating why this was so important for businesses.

Expertise in Active Directory design is now commonplace, but experience still matters in what is a key infrastructure component for so many businesses.

The Active Directory forest and namespace design is a crucial design component that affects the way security is applied and the manner in which services can be delivered across an enterprise. In businesses with complex management structures (such as groups of companies or government agencies), the forest design is crucial in determining the appropriate levels of interoperability and security.

An Active Directory design assesses the business and technical environments, analyses the implications on the various design options, and records each design decision. A typical design includes:

• Forest, namespace and schema design
• Organizational Unit design
• Group Policy design
• Security design
• Administration Model
• Migration design (from earlier versions, multiple forests or other operating system / directory)
• Implementation planning

The new version of Active Directory to be released with Windows 2008 offers new features that will benefit many businesses - especially those with complex wide-area networks and security requirements.