The schema of an Active Directory is the definition of all objects in that instance of Active Directory. The schema of Austin Active Directory consists of the default attributes and classes for Active Directory Domain Services and Microsoft Exchange as well as the custom utexasAuxClass and the associated attributes.
The following are the object classes most commonly leveraged by end-users and department IT staff:
- user class - user objects that are either EID accounts created with information from the EID system or department accounts created via the Department User Tools
- group class - groups of objects that are either distribution lists for e-mail created via the Microsoft 365 Management Tools or security groups created via the Department Group Tools or directly by department IT staff
- computer class - devices connected to Active Directory and can be optionally managed via Group Policy
- organizationalUnit class - containers for objects; organizational units are used to define a structure inside Active Directory
The classes above have been extended with the utexasAuxClass auxiliary class. This class adds additional attributes to the objects and allows the Austin Active Directory to store more information on objects than is permitted by default. The Active Directory team manages the assignment of attributes in the utexasAuxClass and assigns attributes on a per-class basis. The use cases for assigned attributes are defined in the attribute maps detailed below: