Does MOM 2005 Workgroup Edition require Active Directory to be installed?
A. Yes. MOM 2005 Workgroup Edition requires Active Directory to be installed on the management server at a minimum. By also including all the managed servers in Active Directory, you gain mutual authentication, a more secure way of operating MOM 2005. In this mode, the agent and the server are authenticated to each other by the Kerberos service in Active Directory, so that an agent cannot be controlled by anything other than the management server or a valid agent passing data to the management server. This mode of operation is strongly recommended. If mutual authentication is disabled, servers outside of the Active Directory domain can be managed but at the expense of the security benefits provided through mutual authentication.
