What is the difference between the Global Catalog and the Infrastructure Master?

Expert Laura E. Hunter explains the different functions of the Infrastructure Master and Global Catalog in Active Directory.

The Global Catalog server maintains a partial, read-only copy of every domain in a forest, and is used for universal group storage and logon processing, among other things.

The Infrastructure Master is a Flexible, Single-Master Operations role-holder in each Active Directory domain that maintains internal references to objects that reside in other domains. See this article by fellow TechTarget expert Dean Wells for an in-depth look at the relationship between these two Active Directory components.

This was last published in August 2006

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