MCSA/MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-270): Installing ...

What Is a Namespace?
F14us08
!
Lesson 2 Important Active Directory Concepts
14-17
Active Directory, like all directory services, is primarily a namespace, which is any
bounded area in which a name can be resolved. Name resolution is the process of
translating a name into some object or information that the name represents. The
Active Directory namespace is based on the DNS naming scheme, which allows for
interoperability with Internet technologies. An example namespace is shown in Figure
14-8.
Figure 14-8 A namespace is a bounded area in which a name can be resolved.
Using a common namespace allows you to unify and manage multiple hardware and
software environments in your network. There are two types of namespaces:
Contiguous namespace The name of the child object in an object hierarchy always
contains the name of the parent domain. A tree is a contiguous namespace.
Disjointed namespace The names of a parent object and a child of the same parent
object are not directly related to one another. A forest is a disjointed namespace.
Exam Tip The word namespace is often used. Remember that, at its simplest, a
namespace is a structure (often a database) in which all objects are named similarly but are
still uniquely identified.
Naming Conventions
microsoft.com
div1.microsoft.com div2.microsoft.com
dept1.div1.microsoft.com dept1.div2.microsoft.com
dept2.div1.microsoft.com dept2.div2.microsoft.com
Every object in Active Directory is identified by a name. Active Directory uses a variety
of naming conventions: distinguished names, relative distinguished names, globally
unique identifiers, and user principal names.