Defining Objects for Directory Synchronization

When defining objects for directory synchronization between Exchange Server 5.5 directory and Active Directory, your primary goals should be to:

• Provide objects of interest from one environment to the other.
• Make the objects easily accessible to users, administrators, and developers.

You can accomplish this by organizing your Windows 2000 Server objects, such as Users, Contacts, and Groups, into recipient containers that mirror the Exchange Server recipient containers. The following is an example of how you might do this:

• In the Exchange Server 5.5 directory service, create three recipient containers:
  • Custom Recipients
  • Mailboxes
  • Distribution Lists
• In Windows 2000 Server configure the following four OUs:
  • Contacts
  • Users
  • Groups
  • Computers

Note

You would not create a recipient container to correspond with the Windows 2000 Server computer's OU because Exchange Server does not synchronize computers.

Place all of your internal corporate users in the Users container, place your Custom Recipients in the Contacts containers, and place your Distribution Lists in the Group container. Finally, synchronize the directories.

There are two different methods for setting up synchronization between Exchange Server containers and Active Directory OUs. They are as follows:

• For the first method, you can create three separate connection agreements that map each of the Exchange Server containers to the corresponding Active Directory OUs. For example, Custom Recipients in Exchange Server would map to Contacts in Active Directory, and so on. Figure 20.4 provides an example of this method.

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Figure 20.4 Using Multiple Connection Agreements to Map Exchange Server Containers and Windows 2000 Server OUs

• As an alternative to the first method, you could create a single connection agreement between the parent container of all the subcontainers in Exchange Server and the parent container of all the subcontainers in Active Directory. When you synchronize directories for the first time, the ADC automatically creates containers below the parent container in Windows 2000 Server to mirror those in Exchange Server. In this case, Mailboxes, Custom Recipients, and Distribution Lists replicate objects contained in them to the appropriate containers maintaining the directory hierarchy. Only containers that contain one or more mail-enabled objects are replicated.

  Figure 20.5 represents an example of how you would create a single connection agreement to map data from designated containers in Exchange Server to an Active Directory OU.

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Figure 20.5 Single Connection Agreement Maps Containers from Exchange Server to Windows 2000 Server Active Directory

The second method is recommended over the first method because you create fewer connection agreements and the system does most of the work for you.

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