Active Directory Replication Partition In Windows Server 2003

August 3, 2010 by admin
Filed under Windows Server

Replication provides access to users and services at any time from any computer in the domain and in the forest. Replication of information occurs by category, and these categories are called a Directory Partitions. There are four types of Directory partitions:

Schema Partition
Configuration Partition
Domain Partition
Application Directory partition

Schema Partition

Only one schema partition exists per forest. The schema partition is stored on all domain controllers in a forest. The schema partition contains description of all objects and attributes that you can create in the directory, and the rules for creating and manipulating them. Schema information is replicated to all domain controllers in the attribute definitions.

Configuration Partition

There is only one configuration partition per forest. This partition contains information about the AD structure/topology, name and numbers of domain controllers in teach forest, domains and sites structure. Configuration information is replicated to all domain controllers in a forest.

Application Partition

Application partitions store information about application in Active Directory. Unlike a domain partitions, an application partition cannot store security principal objects, such as user accounts. In addition, the data in an application partition is not stored in the global catalog.

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As an example of application partition, if you use a Domain Name System (DNS) that is integrated with Active Directory you have two application partitions for DNS zones — ForestDNSZones and DomainDNSZones:

ForestDNSZones is part of a forest. All domain controllers and DNSservers in a forest receive a replica of this partition. A forest-wide application partition stores the forest zone data.
DomainDNSZones is unique for each domain. All domain controllers that are DNS servers in that domain receive a replica of this partition. The application partitions store the domain DNS zone in the DomainDNSZones.

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