What Is ADSI?

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Active Directory Services Interface provides a simple, powerful interface to Active Directory, other directories (such as Novell NetWare Directory Services [NDS]), and the IIS metabase (a database used exclusively by IIS). ADSI makes it easy for programmers and administrators to create administrative programs by using high-level tools such as Visual Basic and JScript without having to worry about the underlying differences between the different technologies. ADSI enables you to build or buy programs that give you a single point of access to multiple directories in your network environment, whether those directories are based on the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) or another protocol.

ADSI's name might suggest that it works only with the Active Directory, but the following list of compatible technologies shows that this is not the case. ADSI is not an application development interface tied to any specific directory service.

• Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
• LDAP, which also works with Windows 2000 Active Directory
• Novell NDS
• Novell NetWare 3 Bindery
• Microsoft Exchange
• Microsoft Site Server
• Microsoft Internet Information Server