Active Directory as a X.500 metadirectory

  • Thread starter Thread starter BusMaster
  • Start date Start date
B

BusMaster

Greetings from BorealisVitae!

Looking for a little help, here. I come from more of a UNIX environment, so
Active Directory is a little new from the vantage of its implementation,
etc. My predecessor, while not leaving a shamblesby any means, left a
stable installation that appears more or less empty. (From the management
console, the containers appear empty, even though, for example the opening a
Group's property page shows its members - is there an 'undocumented feature'
I am missing?)

There is a requirement to consolidate the myriad of address books,
spreadsheets, databases, and such &c. To increase confidence in and
publicity of Active Directory, using it as an LDAP (eg. thin x.500)
Directory Service is definately the way to go. I have made the
recommendation that the enterprise consider deploying Active Directory using
a GDS (Global Directory Service) or MetaDirectory architecture reference
model, while they are still young enough to do so economically.

As a proof of concept, I am going to create a 'straw-person' OU, and then
collect subsets from a few different sources and put them there. Mapping
issues have been solved well in the past using things like Mercator. A
colleage suggested looking into using SQL Server as the staging area as they
thought there was a way to connect SQL Server and the Active Directory DIT.

Is there a decent 'Here Read This Quick' overview of Active Directory
(besides the clearly exhaustive CHM's)? Also, how would one go about my
proof-of-concept? Is there a utility to import/export information into/from
AD 'naked', or is there a better way via SQL Server?

Any help this week-end would be so totally appreciated.

Snowed-in
 
Thank-you Kathleen:

Can you help me on the AD front, e.g.

How to you view the contents of containers? By that, when I select the
"Administrators" or "Pediatrics" group, their respective mebers show up in
the Details pane.

Thanx
 
In AD as in LDAP in general, members of a group are not stored in the group
container. A group object can contain other objects, but not user accounts.

The group object's members attribute contains the DN of each member.

To view from a domain controller, use the Administrator tools "Users and
Computers" tool.
 
Back
Top