Developing with(out) Active Directory

Question

I'm working on a project where some parts of the system rely on Active Directory. However, I'm at the client's office, where I cannot access their AD(Red tape).

Is there a way to mock AD while I develop?

I'm developing in C# and .NET

Answer 1

our service needs to query the AD for user groups and email addresses

Another option then would be to implement the AD access with the repository pattern and have at least two implementations.

public interface IRepository 
{
    IEnumerable<Something> GetUsers();
}

public class ActiveDirectoryRepository : IRepository ...

public class AnotherRepository : IRepository ...

This way you could easily switch to required implementation at the deployment time - you develop against database, xmlfiles, memory, anything but the deployed application talks to the AD - because you code against the repository interface, you just reconfigure the application and have ZERO changes in the code.

Answer 2

You could use Active Directory Lightweight Directory Service (used to be called ADAM). This allows you to setup a multi-user AD environment.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/