Riordan Active Directory Proposal

Riordan Manufacturing Active Directory Proposal

Introduction

The following is a proposal for the implementation of Active Directory within the Riordan Manufacturing organization. The primary reference for this proposal is the Microsoft guide "Best Practice Active Directory Design for Managing Windows Networks." The contents below will provide a working definition of Microsoft Active Directory, the benefits it will provide to Riordan, a base diagram of Active Directory for Riordan, and a detail analysis of the Active Directory diagram.

Active Directory

Active Directory (AD) is different from specialized and often disconnected directories. AD is designed to play many different roles within an organization. The roles range from managing Windows networks to managing directory enabled applications. (1) The bottom line is that Active Directory empowers organizations to centralize their directory management in a more streamlined, powerful and flexible manner.

Active Directory Benefits

Active Directory brings a wide range of benefits to an organization. The primary benefits stem from the use of AD as a network operating system (NOS). This proposal focuses on utilizing AD as a NOS. The following are highlights of some of the advantages of AD:

* Centralized management of very large Windows networks (Active Directory is designed to support millions of objects).

* The ability to eliminate resource domains, including the hardware and administration they entail.

* Policy-based desktop lockdown and software distribution.

* The ability to delegate administrative control over resources where appropriate.

* Simplified location and use of shared resources.

(1)

An obvious theme throughout the above benefits is the centralization and simplification of network resource management. This powerful approach to using AD as Riordan's NOS will reduce costs of managing disparate directories and increase productivity in the fact that AD allows for resource management delegation.

Active Directory Diagram Riordan Manufacturing

Below, Diagram 1 is the proposed implementation of Active Directory within Riordan Manufacturing. An analysis of this follows below the diagram.

Diagram 1

The first consideration of implementing AD within Riordan is whether or not to create a centralized root directory (forest), or to have a regional or multiple root directories. As can be seen in Diagram 1, a centralized structure has been proposed. The reason for this is that a single forest design is the simplest design and is most easy to administer. This will obviously allow Riordan to take full advantages of AD's streamlining power. Furthermore, Riordan meet the following requirements for single forest implementation:

Diagram 2: Replication Sizing Guidelines for a Single, Global Domain

Slowest link connecting a domain controller (kbps) Create a single, global domain no larger than (users)

9.6 20,000

14.4 30,000

19.2 40,000

28.8 50,000

38.4 75,000

56.0 (and higher) 100,000

(1)

Riordan's