Active Directory

An Active Directory is a directory service operated by Microsoft. This directory service is used to manage IT systems such as printers, computers and users. Microsoft offers the Active Directory in its product family for desktop applications, the Windows Server, Exchange, Sharepoint and many more. Since Windows Server 2008, the Active Directory service consists of five roles with one main component. The main component is called Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS). The Active Directory is used to manage users and computers more easily. Information about users and computers is stored in a directory. Without such a directory, each user in a company would have to enter a user name and password for each application, and the administrators would have to assign each user to each individual application, etc.