Domains and Forests can also share resources available in active directory. These resources are searched by Global Catalog across domains and forests and this search is transparent to user. For example, if you make a search for all of the printers in a forest, this search goes to global catalog server for its query and then global catalog returns the results. Without a global catalog server this query needs to go to every domain in the forest of its result.
It is important to have a global catalog on at least one domain controller because many applications use port 3268 for searching. For example, if you do not have any global catalog servers in your network, the Search command on the Start menu of Windows 2000/2003 cannot locate objects in Active Directory.
The global catalog is a domain controller that contains attributes for every object in the Active Directory. By default, only the members of the Schema Admins group have rights to change which attributes stored in the global catalog, according to organization’s requirements.
The global catalog contains:
The commonly used attributes need in queries, such as a user’s first and last...