Directory Services

Naming Contexts and Directory Partitions

Each domain controller in an Active Directory forest includes directory partitions. Directory partitions are also known as naming contexts. A directory partition is a contiguous portion of the overall directory that has independant replication scope and scheduling data. By default, the Active Directory for an enterprise contains the following partitions:

Windows Server 2003 introduces the Application Directory Partition, which provides the ability to control the scope of replication and allow the placement of replicas in a manner more suitable for dynamic data. For more information about application directory partitions, see About Application Directory Partitions.

For more information about how Active Directory maintains consistency between the various replicas of a directory partition, see Replication and Data Integrity.