What is the difference between forest and domain

The framework that holds the objects can be viewed at different levels namely forest, domain trees, and domains. An Active Directory framework can have more than one domain, and the above tiers are referred to a forest.

See the following guides for other information. Within a deployment, objects are grouped into domains as shown in the below diagram. The objects for a single domain are stored in a single database which can be replicated. Domains are identified by their DNS name structure, namespace.

Forest: A forest is a collection of trees that share a common global catalog, directory schema, logical structure, and directory configuration. The forest represents the security boundary within which users, computers, groups, and other objects are accessible. A forest is a collection of one or more domains which may have one or more trees. What makes a forest unique is that it shares the same schema. The schema defines what and how Active Directory objects are stored.

Domain: A domain is defined as a logical group of network objects computers, users, devices that share the same Active Directory database. Tree: A tree is a collection of one or more domains and domain trees in a contiguous namespace, and is linked in a transitive trust hierarchy.

What is Domain -Definition, Functionality 3. Difference Between Forest and Domain -Comparison of key differences. A forest provides the highest level of security boundary. It is a complete active directory instance. Information sharing only occurs between the objects inside the forest. If the objects in one forest require to communicate with the objects in another forest, these two forests should create a forest level trust between them.

A forest is a collection of domain trees. Additionally, the schema or design is consistent throughout the forest. A domain refers to a logical grouping of objects. In other words, it is an administrative boundary between objects. Learn More. Internet Explorer TechCenter.

Sign in. United States English. Ask a question. Quick access. Search related threads. Remove From My Forums. Universal Groups are also replicated to each Global Catalog in a forest, which basically means that you should perform management activities in a manner that minimizes the frequency of changes to the Global Catalog. Group scope conversions are also allowed but for only those domains running in Windows Native or Windows Server domain functional level:.

You can change a Global Group to a Universal Group only where the particular group is not a member of a different Global Group. A few factors that you should include or consider when planning the design of the forest are discussed in the following section:.

The structure of the organization : Most large organizations usually consist of many smaller businesses or companies that have been acquired my business mergers. With these organizations, there is usually a need for some form of business independence within the organization. To cater for this need, there may be a requirement that certain business be separated from others. This separation is usually achieved by the implementation of forests. Identify operation requirements : Smaller companies within a larger organization might each need to store different data in the Active Directory data store.

In cases where the objects that need to be stored in the Active Directory schema differ, you might need to create different forests to service this requirement.

Legal factors : Legal factors also sometimes lead to the formation of forests. This typically occurs with organizations such as financial institutions where certain data has to be completely separated from other data.

Cost factors : With the deployment of multiple forests comes the need for additional hardware, and increased administrative costs. Shared infrastructures are usually the most costs effective solution. However, this solution could possibly not meet the requirements of the organization.

Namespace factors : It is extremely important to plan and manage namespaces if you plan to create multiple forests with more than one domain tree. Remember that for each forest, you have to define a one DNS namespace. For each domain tree that you create, you have to define another namespace. Identify the forest owner s : Each forest that you plan to create has to have a designated owner, or a group of owners.

The forest owner is responsible for the operation of the forest. This includes the following:. Testing the forest design : You should implement a testing strategy and testing environment in which to test your forest design. The testing environment should ideally be a separate Active Directory environment to the production environment, but should mirror the production environment.

Before examining the major advantages and disadvantages of a multiple forest model and a single forest model, consider the following statement: The most ideal implementation is that of a single forest model. A single forest implementation has less design, implementation, hardware, and administrative costs when compared to a multiple forest implementation. Because there is only one forest, you need to thoroughly plan and control changes which are made to the forest. Any changes that are made to the forest affect all the domains within the environment.

Each business within the larger organization can function in isolation. Businesses can therefore operate independently from one another. Isolated schemas and configuration directory partitions enable you to define forest autonomy at the schema level and configuration level. A multiple forest implementation has a far greater design, implementation, hardware, and administrative cost than that of a single forest implementation.

Geographical factors : Where organizations span may geographical regions, you might consider implementing a geographic domain design to control replication over different regions within the enterprise. Domain controllers would then only replicate data in its local domain. WAN link costs : The cost of implementing and maintaining unreliable WAN links could be high, as is the case in some countries.

Business Requirement Factors : There may be cases where different businesses within the same organization can indeed share a forest, but the nature of their business might lead to each business needing to have its own domains. This is normally necessary when each business needs to implement its own domain security policies.

Each domain name has to be unique. When assigning NetBIOS names, try using names that you would not need to change, and use Internet standard characters.