{"id":2584,"date":"2021-04-05T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jumpcloud.com\/blog\/?p=2584"},"modified":"2024-01-29T11:38:56","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T16:38:56","slug":"do-i-really-need-a-domain-controller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jumpcloud.com\/blog\/do-i-really-need-a-domain-controller","title":{"rendered":"Do I Really Need a Domain Controller?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Do I really need a domain controller (DC)? That all depends on what your definition of one is. The Microsoft\u00ae<\/sup> definition of a domain controller is a server that allows a user to authenticate into a \u201cdomain,\u201d which is a collection of devices and IT services grouped together. Effectively, you would log in to the domain to receive services such as access to the network, applications, printing, file sharing, and email. In a sense, the domain was the equivalent to modern day single sign-on (SSO). The exception, of course, being that those services were within your on-prem network rather than web applications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But, that\u2019s hardly the way networks work anymore. In fact, most of an organization\u2019s IT resources are now located outside of their virtual four walls. There\u2019s a new concept that many IT admins are exploring and it is called the Domainless Enterprise<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Domains were introduced under Windows\u00ae<\/sup> NT and subsequently became a core part of the back-office suite from Microsoft, which also included Active Directory\u00ae<\/sup><\/a> (AD) and Exchange\u00ae<\/sup>. The benefit of the domain was that you created a security model where you could give your employees access to critical internal resources and the IT admin staff could manage those devices\/applications for support and troubleshooting. The domain model was closely tied to the physical model of offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Effectively, IT resources were locked away behind a perimeter, and in order to access them, the user would have to be within that network and physically connected to it via an ethernet cable. Alternatively, users could VPN into the network. That\u2019s not how most IT network environments want<\/em> to operate, however. With the shift in IT networks, admins want to utilize the Zero Trust Security model<\/a>, because they know that not all devices, users, and applications are to be trusted simply because they are logged in to the domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHistory of the Domain Controller<\/h2>\n\n\n\n