Active Directory: The Heart of Enterprise Identity Management

Active Directory (AD) is Microsoft's directory service that stores information about network resources and enables administrators to manage users, computers, and policies across an organization. It is the identity backbone of virtually every enterprise Windows environment.

Our Active Directory books cover design, deployment, management, and troubleshooting of AD environments, from single-domain setups to complex multi-forest architectures.

• Enterprise Standard: Used by 95%+ of Fortune 500 companies
• Identity Foundation: Central authentication for all network resources
• Group Policy: Centralized management of thousands of computers
• Azure Integration: Hybrid identity with Azure AD/Entra ID
• Career Essential: Required knowledge for enterprise IT roles

• Windows Administrators: Master the core of Windows enterprise IT
• Help Desk Staff: Advance to AD administration roles
• Security Teams: Secure and audit identity infrastructure
• Cloud Engineers: Integrate on-premises AD with Azure

• Domain Controller deployment
• Users, groups, and organizational units
• Group Policy Objects (GPOs)
• DNS integration
• Trusts and multi-domain environments
• Azure AD / Entra ID hybrid identity
• AD security and hardening
• Backup and disaster recovery

1. Basics: Domain setup, users, groups, OUs
2. Group Policy: GPO creation, linking, and management
3. DNS: AD-integrated DNS configuration
4. Security: Hardening, auditing, least privilege
5. Advanced: Multi-domain, trusts, sites, replication
6. Hybrid: Azure AD Connect and cloud identity

• AD Administrator: €45,000 – €70,000/year
• Identity Engineer: €55,000 – €85,000/year
• Enterprise IT Architect: €75,000 – €120,000/year