Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI)

 

Chapter 13 - Working with the Active Directory
bySimon Robinsonet al.
Wrox Press 2002

  

The Active Directory Service Interfaces ( ADSI ) is a programmatic interface to directory services. ADSI defines some COM interfaces that are implemented by ADSI providers. This means that the client can use different directory services with the same programmatic interfaces. The .NET Framework classes in the System.DirectoryServices namespace make use of the ADSI interfaces.

In the following picture we can see some ADSI Providers (LDAP, WinNT, and NDS) that implement COM interfaces like IADs and IUnknown . The assembly System.DirectoryServices makes use of the ADSI providers: