Chapter 5. Global Catalogs and Operations Masters

This chapter covers the following subjects: Configuring Global Catalog Servers: A global catalog server holds a subset of Active Directory information for each domain in the forest as well as information on universal group membership. In this section, you learn how to configure domain controllers as global catalog servers. Configuring Operations Masters: Each Active Directory forest has five important roles that are held by single domain controllers. This section shows you how to configure these roles. You also learn the important characteristics of the Active Directory schema and why the schema is so important to the proper functioning of Active Directory.

For users to achieve the maximum benefit of Active Directory, they must be able to locate resources on the network, whether they are in the local domain, another domain in the forest, or a trusting forest. Chapter 1, “Getting Started with Active Directory,” introduced the various components of Active Directory. Included was the concept of the global catalog, which is a central information database that can hold data describing objects throughout the Active Directory forest namespace. Chapter 1 also introduced several directory roles performed by the global catalog, including providing universal group information. This chapter takes you further into the strategy of placing global catalog servers and universal group information and shows you how you can configure these aspects of the directory.