Introducing Active Directory - MCTS Guide to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Configuration - page 79

3

Admin OU

Sales OU Marketing OU

Coolgadgets.com domain
Figure 3-2 An Active Directory domain and OUs

OU

OU OU

Coolgadgets.com
(parent domain)

OU OU

OU OU OU OU

US.coolgadgets.com
(child domain)

UK.coolgadgets.com
(child domain)

Figure 3-3

An Active Directory tree

An Active Directory forest is a collection of one or more trees. A forest can consist of a single
tree with a single domain, or it can contain several trees, each with a hierarchy of parent and
child domains. Each tree in a forest has a different naming structure, so although one tree might
have coolgadgets.com as the parent, another tree in the forest might have niftytools.com as its
parent domain. A forest's main purpose is to provide a common Active Directory environment,
in which all domains in all trees can communicate with one another and share information yet
allow independent operation and administration of each domain. Figure 3-4 shows an Active
Directory forest and the trees and domains it contains.