In catching up for my lateness, this is my 3rd article for this month. Also, please re-read my previous Windows 2000 articles, especially the ones in March. I made a few errors on them, but have since corrected those errors.
I started with Windows 2000 Server and have played with it since Beta 2.0. As of this writing the ONLY official study guides are from Microsoft. One of the disadvantages of being an early adapter, is that you get to be a guinea pig for other people. After going through the resource kits and other material published since then, it's all coming together now!
The concept of domains in Windows 2000 was somewhat confusing to me at first. But it's gelled now. This was probably due to the fact that I was used to DNS (DOMAIN Name Service) as an open standard. Then there's Microsoft's implementation of "domains" in Windows NT 4.0. The "domain" model used by Microsoft in Windows NT is entirely different from the DNS (DOMAIN Name Service) service. There was no semblance between the two.
Now, Windows 2000 uses the DNS service as the default name service, and not only that-they've mixed DNS with Microsoft's idea of "domains." How confusing can it get? For me, it was very confusing... at first.
Basically, a domain in Windows should technically be called a "domain tree." A domain tree is a "domain" that has a single DNS namespace. For example, certscape.com is considered the root "domain" of a domain tree-whenever more than one domain exists in a tree. Notice the ".com" is the top-level domain and the "certscape" is known as the namespace (DNS namespace).
The domain tree can consist of "child domains" such as canada.certscape.com , usa.certscape.com, and so on. Now, a few things about this naming convention:
1) According to Microsoft, the "usa" and "canada" are the child domains of the root domain "certscape." Together, the 3 form a domain tree, NOT a forest. So you can say that there are 3 domains in your network. But technically it should be called a "domain tree"-consisting of the "usa.certscape.com" domain, the "canada.certscape.com" domain, and the "certscape" root domain.
2) In the DNS open-standard, the usa.certscape.com and canada.certscape.com-- the "usa" and "canada" are servers which are called containers. Microsoft also uses containers in Windows 2000, but it's a bit different than the DNS open-standard. MS uses containers as paths, ie. Usa.certscape.com/Users . However, Microsoft does denote that "usa" and "canada" are physical servers also, as domain controllers specifically.
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