User's Manual

Using the CMC With Microsoft Active Directory 167
Using the CMC With Microsoft
Active Directory
A directory service maintains a common database of all information needed
for controlling network users, computers, printers, and so on. If your company
uses the Microsoft
®
Active Directory
®
service software, you can configure the
software to provide access to the CMC. This allows you to add and control
CMC user privileges to your existing users in your Active Directory software.
NOTE: Using Active Directory to recognize CMC users is supported on the
Microsoft Windows
®
2000 and Windows Server
®
2003 operating systems.
Active Directory Schema Extensions
You can use Active Directory to define user access on CMC through two
methods:
• The extended schema solution, which uses Active Directory objects
defined by Dell.
• The standard schema solution, which uses Active Directory group objects
only.
Extended Schema Versus Standard Schema
When using Active Directory to configure access to the CMC, you must
choose either the extended schema or the standard schema solution.
With the extended schema solution:
• All of the access control objects are maintained in Active Directory.
• Configuring user access on different CMCs with different privilege levels
allows maximum flexibility.
With the standard schema solution:
• No schema extension is required, because standard schema use Active
Directory objects only.
• Configuration on the Active Directory side is simple.