Before getting into the technical aspects of Active Directory, I suggest we take a look at its history to get to know it better.
The original name of Active Directory was NTDS (NT Directory Services). Traces of this name can still be found today (2020), for example, the name of the database NTDS.DIT or the utility NTDSUTIL.EXE.
It was first introduced by Microsoft in 1996 and its first implementation in Windows Server took place in 1999 with Windows 2000 Server Edition.
Since its release on Windows 2000, with each new version of Windows Server, Active Directory services have been improved and new features have been added:
- Replication with DFS-R
- Basket
- Authentication strategy
- …
The origins of Active Directory date back to Exchange version 4.0 in 1993, which was a competitor to IBM’s Lotus suite. At that time, Exchange used its own LDAP directory.
In 2000, with the integration of Active Directory services into Windows Server, the Exchange messaging software no longer relies on its own directory but on that of Active Directory.