Preface (1st Edition, AD2000)
During the seven years that Windows NT was sold before Windows 2000
shipped, administrators didn't need to learn practically anything new,
at least about the core operating system features. User and group
management, domains and domain models, and resource management had been
the same in all Windows NT versions.
With the introduction of Windows 2000 and Active Directory, that all
changed. There is a huge difference in managing Windows networks over
the old NT administration model. Therefore, Active Directory will
require quite a lot of study on the part of NT professionals.
Despite some administrative wizards in the user interface and the new
Microsoft Management Console (MMC) administration interface,
implementing and administering Active Directory requires probably more
learning, testing, piloting, and planning than Windows NT required.
About This Book
Inside Active Directory is an implementer and
administrator's guide to Active Directory. Throughout the book, you will
learn the workings, architecture, administration, and planning of Active
Directory. Depending on your needs, however, you don't have to read this
book from cover to cover, as we describe later in this preface.
The following list evaluates the appropriateness of this book for a
number of potential audiences.
 |
A current NT professional. You are
the target audience for this book. However, you may want to browse
relatively fast through the introductory pages that we have in the
beginning of many chapters. |
|
A current NetWare or UNIX professional.
Prior knowledge of Windows NT is not required to successfully learn
from this book. Your earlier networking skills will most likely enable
you to pick up each topic quite fast. However, you probably shouldn't
skip any introductory topics. |
|
A network operating systems novice.
Because we tend to start each chapter with the very basics, at least
in theory you can use this book to effectively learn Active Directory.
Obviously, you need to invest more time reading than an experienced IT
professional. You should also have a test PC that you can use to try
out the different tasks and experiments that the book describes. |
|
A current Windows 2000 professional.
Even if you are already familiar with Active Directory, we trust that
you will learn more than a few things from this book. |
|
A developer. This book is an
administrator's guide and not a programmer's guide. However, the book
contains more architectural topics than the average book for an
administrator, so you may find this book valuable to you in addition
to a programmer's guide. |
|
We present well-thought-out diagrams that help you easily
comprehend the various key concepts and other topics related to Active
Directory. |
|
At worst, a book just shows screen shots and shortly explains what
is already evident from the user interface or the online Help. In
contrast, this book contains thorough and accurate information on the
topics it covers. |
|
We claim that this book contains very few errors. |
|
Even though this book is not a reference guide, we present many
extensive reference tables. |
|
If you install Active Directory on a test PC, you can try out most
of the tasks and experiments described in this book, whether they are
written to be walkthroughs or not. |
