Greetings from BorealisVitae!

Looking for a little help, here.  I come from more of a UNIX environment, so
Active Directory is a little new from the vantage of its implementation,
etc.  My predecessor, while not leaving a shamblesby any means, left a
stable installation that appears more or less empty.  (From the management
console, the containers appear empty, even though, for example the opening a
Group's property page shows its members - is there an 'undocumented feature'
I am missing?)

There is a requirement to consolidate the myriad of address books,
spreadsheets, databases, and such &c.  To increase confidence in and
publicity of Active Directory, using it as an LDAP (eg. thin x.500)
Directory Service is definately the way to go.  I have made the
recommendation that the enterprise consider deploying Active Directory using
a GDS (Global Directory Service) or MetaDirectory architecture reference
model, while they are still young enough to do so economically.

As a proof of concept, I am going to create a 'straw-person' OU, and then
collect subsets from a few different sources and put them there.  Mapping
issues have been solved well in the past using things like Mercator.  A
colleage suggested looking into using SQL Server as the staging area as they
thought there was a way to connect SQL Server and the Active Directory DIT.

Is there a decent 'Here Read This Quick' overview of Active Directory
(besides the clearly exhaustive CHM's)?  Also, how would one go about my
proof-of-concept?  Is there a utility to import/export information into/from
AD 'naked', or is there a better way via SQL Server?

Any help this week-end would be so totally appreciated.

Snowed-in