Planning for Publishing of Site Data to Active Directory Domain Services
Updated: May 14, 2015
Applies To: System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1, System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP2, System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager, System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager SP1
If you extend the Active Directory schema for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, you can publish Configuration Manager sites to Active Directory Domain Services so that Active Directory computers can securely retrieve site information from a trusted source. Although publishing site information to Active Directory Domain Services is not required for basic Configuration Manager functionality, this configuration can reduce administrative overhead.
When you extend the Active Directory schema for Configuration Manager and a site is configured to publish to Active Directory Domain Services, Configuration Manager clients can automatically find management points through Active Directory publishing using an LDAP query to a global catalog server. If you do not extend the Active Directory schema for Configuration Manager, management points cannot be published to Active Directory Domain Services and clients must have an alternative mechanism to locate their default management point. For information about service location by clients, see the Service Location and how clients determine their assigned management point section in the Planning for Communications in Configuration Manager topic.
The following are prerequisites you must configure before a Configuration Manager site can publish site data to Active Directory Domain Services:
You must extend the Active Directory schema in each forest where you will publish site data. For more information, see Determine Whether to Extend the Active Directory Schema for Configuration Manager.
You must configure Active Directory Forests for use with Configuration Manager, and enable publishing to the forests you want to use. For information, see the About Active Directory Forest Discovery section in the Planning for Discovery in Configuration Manager topic.
You must enable publishing at each site that will publish its data to Active Directory Domain Services. For information, see Configuring Sites to Publish to Active Directory Domain Services.