Lesson 9

In this module, you have acquired the skills needed to implement Active Directory into your network or the one you are administering. More specifically, you learned how to complete the following tasks:

1. Create sites
2. Create subnets
3. Move server objects between sites
4. Create site links
5. Create connection objects to override the default replication topology
6. Create a global server catalog

The Global Catalog is a distributed data repository that contains a searchable, partial representation of every object in an Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) forest. The Global Catalog is created automatically when the first domain in a new forest is created.
To designate a domain controller as a Global Catalog server, follow these steps:

1. Open the 'Active Directory Sites and Services' tool. You can access this from the Administrative Tools folder on your domain controller.
2. Expand the 'Sites' container in the left pane of the console until you find the server that you want to make a Global Catalog server.
3. Expand the chosen server node, and you will find an object called 'NTDS Settings'.
4. Right-click on 'NTDS Settings' for the chosen server, and then click 'Properties'.
5. In the 'NTDS Settings Properties' dialog box that opens, check the 'Global Catalog' checkbox to enable the server as a Global Catalog server.
6. Click 'OK' to confirm the changes. The server is now designated as a Global Catalog server.

Active Directory will begin to replicate the necessary additional information to the new Global Catalog server. This process might take a while, depending on the size of your AD DS environment. Please note that it's important to plan the placement of your Global Catalog servers wisely to ensure network efficiency. Ideally, you should have at least one Global Catalog server in each site to ensure that users can log in to the network and access resources efficiently. Additionally, keep in mind that a Global Catalog server holds a partial replica of every object in the forest, so it can use more disk space and generate more replication traffic. These factors should be taken into account when planning your Active Directory infrastructure.

Here is a list of terms that may have been new to you in this module:

1. Knowledge Consistency Checker (KCC): A built-in service that runs on all domain controllers and automatically establishesconnections between individual machines in the same site.
2. Wide area network (WAN): A network that spans a large geographic area; a WAN generally consists of two or more LANs (local area networks) linked together via phone lines, satellite or other WAN link.
3. Connection object: An object that represents a one-way replication path between two server objects and points to the replication source.
4. Global server: Same as a global catalog server. A global server is a domain controller that contains a partial copy of every domain in Active Directory. To do this, the global server holds a replica of every object in Active Directory. Active Directory replication builds the global server automatically.
5. Global Server Catalog: A Windows 2000 computer that holds a copy of the global catalog for the forest.

Before going on, take this quiz to tie all the skills and concepts that you learned in this module together.
Active Directory Characteristics - Quiz