Please Explain Active Directory

spacemancw

Hi

can anyone explain Active Directory in baby terms ... some times I'm just a big baby!

AD is made up of schema, global catalog, namespace, Distinguished Names, objects, object class, properties, OUs, site, attributes and so on.

I am reading all this in the MS Press 215 book and it's not making much sense as there are not many examples. I cannot translate any of those terms into working examples or what I have traditionally viewed some of them as.

I don't have a lot of experience with NT or 2K but I have used the User Database in NT and added users. So I see the AD as a place or an application where I can add users, computers or groups.

I'm not sure what all the other terms mean. Things like whats the difference between a domain, a site and a OU?

I guess I'd like to see or hear about a working example or an explanation of how u would use all the AD pits and pieces in a language thats easy to understand.

One other thing thats not yet clear is group policy.
If I create a user I can give that user NTFS permissions on certain files/folders or share permissions on certain shares.
If I create a group, I can then give the permissions to the group and members in that group will have those permissions.
But I get the feeling that it's not that simple and that when you create a group you apply some group policy in AD .... this part I don't get. Is it as simple as assigning NTFS/Share permissions to a group?

thanx much

Roger