Question

in a windows server class explain what function an Active Directory Organizational Unit serves, including containers.

Answer 1

An organizational unit is an Active Directory object that is used to organize other objects that are created and contained within the Active Directory infrastructure. OUs are unique from Containers, which are another type of organizational object that is contained within Active Directory. OUs differ from Containers primarily because an OU can have a Group Policy Object (GPO) linked to it, where a Container cannot. This might not sound all that important, but it is paramount.

OUs primarily will be used to organize the following objects:

• User accounts
• Group accounts
• Computers

Organizational Unit (OU) is a container in Active Directory domain that can contain different objects from the same AD domain: other containers, groups, user and computer accounts. Active Directory OU is a simple administrative unit within a domain on which an administrator can link Group Policy objects and assign permissions to another user.

Thus, we can distinguish two main tasks when using OU, except for storing objects in Active Directory:

• Delegation of management and administrative tasks within the domain to other administrators and users without granting them the domain administrator permissions;
• Linking Group Policies (GPO) to all objects (users and computers) in this OU.