5 Things They Never Told You About the ADC

On the face of it, the Active Directory Connector (ADC) seems like a straightforward piece of technology. Armed with the requisite Schema and Enterprise Admin privileges, you simply install it from the CD-ROM, configure it by pointing one end to an Exchange Server 5.5 Directory Service (DS) and the other end to a Windows 2000 Active Directory (AD) service, and—bah-dah-bing, bah-dah-boom—you immediately start synchronizing information between the directories. Simple!

Well, the process isn't as straightforward as that! The ADC is certainly a powerful tool for synchronizing information, but its operation can be quite subtle. To use the ADC effectively and efficiently in a production environment, you need to understand some of its idiosyncrasies. Here are five hints that will get you on the right track.

1. Use the Right Version for the Job
The ADC has two versions. One ADC version is on the Win2K installation CD-ROM, so obviously the ADC has been around for some time. Many companies that have been experimenting with Win2K since its beta days have also taken the time to play with the Win2K ADC and have been replicating information from the Exchange Server 5.5 DS into the AD. Microsoft made the Win2K ADC version available to let you prepare the AD for eventual migration to Exchange 2000 Server. . . .