How it works...

When you rename an Active Directory site, you change the common name of the object of the Active Directory site. While this is not a problem with most software, such as System Center Configuration Manager, your organization might get in trouble with software that references Active Directory sites by their names and not their GUIDs.

An Active Directory site's location might be a field you'd want to use to define the physical location and/or network type of an Active Directory site. This way, when there is a problem with the Active Directory site, admins might make their way to the root cause, the core problem, and/or physical location faster. In multi-domain environments, it might be useful to denote the domain for which the Active Directory site is in use. A perfect example for such an environment: using Airfield IATA code would be P ZRH LucernPub to denote a production Active Directory site for Lucern Publishing near Zurich Airport.

Before deleting an Active Directory site, make sure to move all domain controllers from that site to a different site. Don't worry about site links or subnets; these are not deleted when you delete an Active Directory site.

When you delegate control of an Active Directory site, you allow a group to manage Active Directory site Group Policy links through the gPLink attribute of an Active Directory site, out of the box, or any other granular task on any of the attributes you want to delegate.