As you may know I am a Microsoft MVP for Directory Services and I often receive emails asking about AD among other things. I don't always know the answer off the top of my head (shocking I know) and often reference my collection of books. Over the years, one of the books I referenced most was Active Directory from O'Reilly Publishing. The third edition of this book was recently published and it is better than ever.

I am going to put this as simply as I can. If you administer an Active Directory domain this book is an excellent technical guide that you should have on your bookshelf. The book follows a very logical approach with each chapter building on the previous ones. The book is a no-nonsense look at Active Directory aimed at experienced administrators. It is an excellent reference book that covers the nuts and bolts of AD. The book was written by fellow MVPs Robbie Allen and Joe Richards (from Joeware.net), along with Allistair Lowe-Norris, three people who know Active Directory better than anybody.

Alistair Lowe-Norris headed up the largest Windows 2000 Active Directoty deployment at a major university in the U.K. The knowledge and experience they bring to this book is very apparent and they have a way of explaining things in a concise but copmplete manner. The book has 31 chapters spilt into three sections. The first section covers the basics of Active Directory including the differences between Windows 2000 and 2003 AD as well as the Active Directory improvements in Windows Server 2003 SP1 and R2. Part two is an excellent section covering designing Active Directory as well as a great chapter on ADAM.

The third section offers an introduction into scripting techniques for managing ADAM and AD and is full of well written step by step tutorials that will teach you to write useful scripts that you can put into use today! Highlights of the book include a well written chapter on ADAM. It covers the basics of ADAM v1.0 and R2, before going into installation and configuration of ADAM and wrapping up with ADAM management tasks. Another highlight for me is the easy to understand section on scripting. I am by no means a scripter, in fact I know very little about scripting but it is something that I try real hard at. The thrid section covering scripting was the easiest to understand information on scripting I have read. Starting off with the different scripting options (WSH, WMI, ADSI, C+ etc..) the book gives a good introduction to the scripting posibilities available in Active Directory. The sample scripts are very well explained in a way you don't normally see.

Finally, the book also includes a 45 day online copy of the book via Safari Books Online. If you don't already subscribe to Safari Online, it allows you to access the entire book from any computer with an Internet connection. Read the book from your laptop and the local Internet cafe, or just pull up a page from a customer site. The search function allows you to quickly find what you are looking for. All in all this is a very well rounded book that should be on the bookshelf of every Active Directory administrator. This book accompanied by the Active Directory Cookbook (also written by Robbie Allen) will make you an master of Active Directory in no time!