9.2 Implementing a Custom ActiveView

An ActiveView provides real time access to specific objects within one or more domains or OUs. You can add or remove objects from an ActiveView without changing the underlying domain or OU structure.

You may think of an ActiveView as a virtual domain or OU, or the results of a select statement or database view for a relational database. ActiveViews can include or exclude any set of objects, contain other ActiveViews, and have overlapping contents. ActiveViews can contain objects from different domains, trees, and forests. You can configure ActiveViews to meet any enterprise management need.

ActiveViews can include the following object types:

Accounts:

  • Users

  • Groups

  • Computers

  • Contacts

  • Dynamic Distribution Groups

  • Published Printers

  • Published Printer Print Jobs

  • Resource Mailboxes

  • Shared Mailboxes

  • Public Folders

Directory Objects:

  • Organizational Units

  • Domains

  • Member Servers

Delegation Objects:

  • ActiveViews

  • Self Administration

  • Direct Reports

  • Managed Groups

Resources:

  • Connected Users

  • Devices

  • Event Logs

  • Open Files

  • Printers

  • Print Jobs

  • Services

  • Shares

As your enterprise changes or grows, ActiveViews change to include or exclude the new objects. Thus, you can use ActiveViews to reduce the complexity of your model, provide the security you need, and give you far more flexibility than other enterprise organizing tools.

9.2.1 ActiveViews Rules

An ActiveView can consist of rules that include or exclude objects such as user accounts, groups, OUs, contacts, resources, computers, resource mailboxes, shared mailboxes, dynamic distribution groups, and ActiveViews. This flexibility makes ActiveViews dynamic.

These matches are called wildcards. For example, you can define a rule to include all computers with names matching DOM*. This wildcard specification will search for any computer account whose name begins with the character string DOM. Wildcard matching makes administration dynamic because accounts are automatically included when they match the rule. Thus, when you use wildcards, you do not need to reconfigure the ActiveViews as your organization changes.

Another example is defining ActiveViews based on group membership. You can define a rule that includes all members of groups that begin with the letters NYC. Then, as members are added to any group matching this rule, these members are automatically included in this ActiveView. As your enterprise changes or grows, DRA reapplies the rules to include or exclude the new objects in the proper ActiveViews.