Summary

With this chapter, I've covered the various methods used to connect to Active Directory and access objects. Through its flexible architecture, Active Directory allows discovering and connecting securely to the most appropriate server without any prior knowledge on the part of the client. By using the global catalog and some of the binding options, you can greatly increase the performance of your application. It may seem like there is a lot to remember, but there really isn't. The vast majority of the time, you'll use the functions GetObject or ADsGetObject with few, if any options. In the next chapter, we take the process a step farther by asking the Active Directory server to search itself and return the information we're looking for.