Managing Partitions Within Active Directory

As an alternative to managing Active Directory partitions through the Active Directory Users and Computers administrative tool, you can manage COM+ partitions programmatically through the use of a set of COM+ objects within Active Directory System Interface (ADSI).

Regardless of the administrative technique you choose for managing COM+ partitions, there is a general sequence of steps that administrators must follow:

  1. Create the new COM+ partitions within Active Directory for your domain.
  2. Create COM+ partition sets within Active Directory, and map them to your newly created COM+ partitions.
  3. Configure your Active Directory partitions on your local machine, using the appropriate COM+ object. When you configure an Active Directory partition on a local machine, a COM+ Applications folder is automatically created in that partition folder.
  4. Install your COM+ applications in the appropriate COM+ partitions.

All of the preceding steps can be done programmatically, using a set of Active Directory interfaces called ADSI. The objects available for managing partitions that are available within ADSI are as follows:

  • DS_USERPARTITIONSETLINK_NAME
  • DS_PARTITIONLINK_NAME
  • DS_OBJECTID_NAME
  • DS_DEFAULTPARTITIONLINK_NAME
  • DS_USERLINK_NAME
  • DS_PARTITIONSET_NAME
  • DS_PARTITION_NAME

For information on creating and managing COM+ partitions through the use of the Active Directory Users and Computers and Component Services administrative tools, see the online help available from within each tool.

Collecting Partition Metrics

Configuring the Partition Cache

Grouping Applications into Partitions

Managing Local Partitions

Setting Administrative Rights for a Partition