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Microsoft Active Directory Administration does a good job explaining Active Directory and serving as a quick-reference resource for administrators. The key difference between Microsoft Windows 2000 and its immediate predecessor is Active Directory, the distributed filesystem infrastructure that enables you to interact with files and directories that are spread over computers that are widely separated geographically. Though Windows 2000 servers make the distributed directory structure work transparently to individual users, administering those machines requires some special knowledge and some careful design work.

Kevin Kocis likes to explain his subject by working out from first principles: he explains what a feature (say, trusts) is and does, then proceeds to illustrate how it behaves under various conditions. From there, it's straight-ahead how-to material. In the trusts section, Kocis shows how to verify and revoke trusts with sequences of steps. There are also a large number of conceptual diagrams that illustrate processes that aren't easily observed in the wild, such as the establishment and renewal of dynamic IP addresses. Read this one if you're about to deploy Windows 2000 and want to see what its main selling point can do for your organization, or if you've already configured Active Directory and want some help with everyday administration. --David Wall

Topics covered: Active Directory on networks of Windows 2000 computers. Sections address Active Directory holistically, then get into trusts, domains, users, groups, and policies. Security gets attention, as does Domain Name Service (DNS), replication strategies, and network traffic optimization.

Learn the role of Kerberos, ACL's, Security ID's, IPSec, and PKI in Active Directory security