Here is the long and the short of it from the MS perspective.  The simple
version of this story is "a better way of managing large organizations and
interfaces with and between other organizations.    In the physical world
similar parallels are.  Why didn't the 13 colonies just stay separate
states?  Why do cities use the law to regulate zoning and growth?  Why are
stock markets highly regulated?  The answer in part to all of these
questions is that complexity requires fundamental organizational schemas.
Networks previously could get away with what they got away with because they
were smaller and more specialized.  As the Internet grows
business/operations/etc. value is extracted from the ability of these
organizational schemas to interface and interact.  There are other
parallels ----- HTML to XML ------ in technology.    Check this link for the
politically correct (and slightly more granular) version of this message
from MS.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/guide/server/features/dirlist.asp#headi
ng2

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-kclug@illiana.net [mailto:owner-kclug@illiana.net]On Behalf Of
Brian Kelsay
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2000 9:16 AM
To: 'kclug@kclug.org'
Subject: kclug - Windows 2000 Active directory

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/08/23/2134237&mode=thread
This story at Slashdot starts off talking about a Gov't users of Unix
needing to implement standard desktops for productivity apps (office apps
and PeopleSoft) and then he mentions Active Directory and goes into how his
Dept. is going to connect to other locations that will be using Active
Directory.

Can someone tell me what is so important about having Active Directory?  I
have never used Novell and NDS (although I know the term NDS), but have
never heard what it can do or if it is even important.  If it is so great to
have directory services why have Unix and NT networks gotten away without
having one for so long?  Also, is there a Directory Service in the works for
Linux?

Thanks,
Brian