Chapter 5. Designing Active Directory for Delegation

Terms you'll need to know:

• Administrative model

• Delegation

• Delegation of Control Wizard

• Inheritance

• Inheritance modification

Techniques you'll need to master:

• Identifying the administrative needs in an organization and determining the impact this will have on Active Directory

• Developing an administrative model based on the needs of the IT organization

• Designing a strategy for delegation

• Assigning authority using the Delegation of Control Wizard

• Using inheritance and inheritance modification to determine the scope of administration

• Designing an organizational unit (OU) hierarchy for delegation

One of the most important new features of Windows 2000 is delegation , which enables an administrator of an organization to grant administrative rights to other individuals or groups. This eliminates the problem of having one person or group be entirely responsible for all the administrative tasks . By grouping objects into containers in Active Directory, delegation of control over the objects can be assigned to specific individuals or groups.

During this phase of designing an Active Directory infrastructure, a delegation plan is implemented. A thorough assessment of the various aspects of the business needs to be performed to determine which administrative model to implement as well as which individuals and groups will be assigned delegation of control over which administrative tasks.

This chapter is broken down into four major topics: identifying business needs, determining the type of IT organization, developing a model for administration, and developing strategies for delegation. Also keep in mind the terms and techniques listed at the beginning of this chapter, with which you'll need to become familiar.