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Also, it allows management and storage of information, provides authentication and authorization mechanisms and establishes a framework to deploy other related services: Certificate Services, Active Directory Federation Services, Lightweight Directory Services, and Rights Management Services. For example, when a user logs into a computer that is part of a Windows domain, Active Directory checks the submitted username and password and determines whether the user is a system administrator or normal user.
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It authenticates and authorizes all users and computers in a Windows domain type network, assigning and enforcing security policies for all computers, and installing or updating software. Ī server running the Active Directory Domain Service ( AD DS) role is called a domain controller. However, Active Directory eventually became an umbrella title for a broad range of directory-based identity-related services.
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Initially, Active Directory was used only for centralized domain management. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services.
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Not to be confused with Microsoft Azure Active Directory.Īctive Directory ( AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks.
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