Directory servers

The LDAP Client (notably Microsoft Windows Active Directory) functionality presents organizations with a directory service designed for distributed computing environments. It allows organizations to centrally manage and share information about network resources and users while acting as the central authority for network security.

In addition to providing comprehensive directory services to a Windows environment, the directory server is designed to be a consolidation point for isolating, migrating, centrally managing, and reducing the number of directories that companies require.

A directory service differs from a directory in that it is both the directory information source and the services making the information available and usable to administrators, users, network services, and applications. Ideally, a directory service makes the physical network topology and protocols (formats for transmitting data between two devices) transparent so that a user can access any resource without knowing where or how it is physically connected. To continue the user account example, it is the directory service that lets other authorized users on the same network access stored directory information (such as an email address) about the user account object. In addition to providing a place to store data and services to make that data available, it also protects network objects from unauthorized access and replicates objects across a network so that data is not lost if one domain controller fails.

BCM allows you to synchronize its device database with directory services already existing in your network. You can thus 'copy' existing directory services items such as organizational units (OU), computers, and so on, into BCM groups and members to then administer these via the BCM console. You can 'import' all different types of groups including security groups and users and computers. This node allows you to define the existing directory servers for use with BCM, the actual synchronization is done through the nodes of the groups to be synchronized.

A directory service is the main switchboard of a network operating system. It manages the identities and brokers relationships between distributed resources so they can work together. Further, it is a place to store information about corporate and organizational assets such as applications, files, printers, and users. It provides a consistent method for naming, describing, locating, accessing, managing, and securing information about the resources

When Active Directory is installed on your Windows Server a new Active Directory forest or domain is created. In Active Directory, the network and its objects are organized by constructs such as domains, trees, forests, trust relationships, organizational units (OUs), and sites. The server which is the first domain controller in this forest is called the Directory Server. The directory server is the computer running the server that manages all user access to the network which includes logging on, authentication an access to the directory and shared resources. Each directory server has a Dynamic Groups subnode.

The following topics are provided:

Computer fields

This tab lists all available fields for devices that may be synchronized with their original name and the matched field name within the console. It displays the following information:

User fields

This tab lists all available fields for administrators and users that can be synchronized with their original name and the matched field name within the console. It displays the following information:

This section includes:

• Creating a directory server
• Modifying the directory server parameters
• Checking connection to the directory server
• Deleting a Directory Server