Parson's Lights manufactures natural lighting fixtures sold throughout North America. The users in the Manufacturing and Inventory Building are fully networked and use modern operating systems. The managers and accounting group use Windows 7. Users on the manufacturing floor are equipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation, and the inventory users have computers running Mac OS X. There is a secure computer room in the Manufacturing and Inventory Building that houses five Windows Server 2008 R2 servers. All of the computer equipment is recently set up, because the company just reorganized and gave these users a large budget to fully network the building and upgrade operating systems.

In one paragraph for each question, complete the questions below using complete sentences.

In the past, the building was only equipped with one Windows Server 2003. Now that they have five Windows Server 2008 R2 servers, the IT support group is considering whether or not to install Active Directory. What advantages does Active Directory offer for managing user accounts?

The old Windows Server 2003 was set up so that all resources were managed through a confusing array of local groups. As one example, the managers' user accounts were in one local group which was given full control access to all folders and files, printers, and other resources. What general suggestions do you have for creating a different way to manage user accounts and groups on the new Windows Server 2008 R2 servers?