Book Image

Mastering Active Directory

By : Dishan Francis
Book Image

Mastering Active Directory

By: Dishan Francis

Overview of this book

Active Directory is a centralized and standardized system that automates networked management of user data, security, and distributed resources and enables interoperation with other directories. If you are aware of Active Directory basics and want to gain expertise in it, this book is perfect for you. We will quickly go through the architecture and fundamentals of Active Directory and then dive deep into the core components, such as forests, domains, sites, trust relationships, OU, objects, attributes, DNS, and replication. We will then move on to AD schemas, global catalogs, LDAP, RODC, RMS, certificate authorities, group policies, and security best practices, which will help you gain a better understanding of objects and components and how they can be used effectively. We will also cover AD Domain Services and Federation Services for Windows Server 2016 and all their new features. Last but not least, you will learn how to manage your identity infrastructure for a hybrid-cloud setup. All this will help you design, plan, deploy, manage operations on, and troubleshoot your enterprise identity infrastructure in a secure, effective manner. Furthermore, I will guide you through automating administrative tasks using PowerShell cmdlets. Toward the end of the book, we will cover best practices and troubleshooting techniques that can be used to improve security and performance in an identity infrastructure.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)

Managing Group Policies

Before I started writing these words in this chapter, many things were going through my head about this topic because there's a lot of things to cover in just one chapter. Group policies is a broader topic to discuss, and it is possible to even write a whole book about it. It will be challenging, but I will make sure that I cover a majority of it.

My council tax is going to increase by 5% in April (thanks to Brexit). It is a rule and whether I like it or not, I have to pay it every month. If not, I will have to face the consequences. This particular rule has a clear audience. It will only apply to houses under the Kingston council. We can consider Group Policy as an authority that executes a rule or set of rules against a clearly identified audience. This is similar to the council in my example.

It is impossible to describe Active Directory benefits...