Active Directory's database
 
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This week we'll take a brief look at the database used for Windows 2000's Active Directory as we continue to explore this most important facet of the new server operating system.
Active Directory uses the new Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) as the basis for its database. ESE is an improved version of the Jet database that was used in Microsoft Exchange 4.0 and 5.0, and is the same database engine that will also be used for the new versions of Microsoft Exchange.
This improved storage engine lets you create a database of up to 17 terabytes in size (if you've got the disk space and RAM to support it). The database can hold up to 10 million objects. This doesn't mean that your database will necessarily be huge, however. ESE reserves storage only for those properties that actually have value. As an example, the default schema predefines approximately 50 properties for a user object. If you create a user, and you set only four properties - such as first name, last name, common name, and password - the database uses space for these four attributes only. If you add more values later, the database dynamically allocates storage for the data.
ESE can also store properties with multiple values. For example, the database can store multiple phone numbers for a single user without requiring multiple phone number attributes.
One important consideration in determining your ADS structure is the size of the database and its impact on database replication. We'll explore this topic next week.
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