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By themselves, groups are so generic as to be almost without value. However, when used by other
systems or applications that infer their needs onto the collections, groups can provide great value. For
example, most users of email systems understand the benefit of distribution lists as a means to send a
single message to multiple parties. However, as Haaverson points out, "having a list of contacts in my
email client is great - until someone asks 'Can I use your list?' I'm stuck; there's no easy way to share that
information short of cut and paste. However, if that distribution list is actually an email-enabled group in,
let's say, Active Directory, then anyone with permissions can benefit from the list."
But groups go far beyond email and distribution lists. Groups efficiently provide access-control to both
privileges and resources. "That's why Microsoft embeds all of those groups you see in AD," explains
Haaverson. "They know - regardless of your industry or footprint - you're going to have domain
administrators, so there is an Administrators group; if you buy SQL Server, there is a SQL Administrators
group, and so on." Groups ease the burden of provisioning by requiring the access and privileges matrix
to be defined once - for the group - while individual accounts requiring those rights inherit them as a
function of group membership.
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