Active Directory Design and Security Concepts - MCTS Guide to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Configuration - page 113

OUs are containers holding objects such as user and computer accounts, but they can
also contain other OUs. This ability to nest OUs gives you the flexibility to create a hierar-
chy with as many levels as needed for your environment. Take a look at a fictitious company,
Fakebusiness.com, with this top-level organizational structure:
• Administration
• Marketing
• Research and Development (R&D)
• Operations

4

This organization will likely have a single-level OU structure, as shown on the left in
Figure 4-1. Dividing R&D into the Engineering and Research departments and Marketing into
Sales and Advertising creates the multilevel OU structure shown on the right in Figure 4-1.

Fakebusiness.com Fakebusiness.com

Administration Administration

Marketing Marketing

R&D Sales

Operations Advertising

A single-level OU
structure

R&D

Research

Engineering

Operations

A multilevel OU
structure

Figure 4-1 Single-level and multilevel OU structures