Setting up Active Directory - Best Solution

Question

Hi all, 
Pretty new to all the Windows 2012 business, but i have had a good crack at it. 
I am building my artefact for my university dissertation, and i am building a virtual environment for a small fictional financial company. I have set up and configured my CentOS FTP Server, and my WS 2012 R2 File Server, however i want to get an Active Directory
Server Set up.
I suppose i have a couple of questions really...
1) What is the best way to do this? I have two servers (File Server & Active Directory Server) on the same domain, and i want to add users and groups using Active Directory that have access to the file server, as it will act as their own personal desktop
space. I have a virtual machine, that will be used as a "Hot Desk" which all users can access to get their personal documents, this is connected to my File Server. 
2) is this really necessary? Im aware i can just add users to the file server via the server dashboard, however the AD gives me more security and control over the users. So is it worth spending a while setting it up when it may not be absolute necessary?
I hope i have made my scenario clear. 
Many thanks in advance!
Al

Answer 1

It can be installed on the same server, but if you are talking about a single server installation, there is not much benefit.  In a workgroup environment, you need to set up an account for each user.  In an AD environment, you need to set up an
account for each user.  In a workgroup environment, you can create security groups to control access to resources.  In an AD environment, you can create security groups to control access to resources.
The real benefit to AD comes if you want to manage users who can log in from different devices, or if you have multiple resource servers.  In a workgroup with multiple resource servers, you have to set up accounts and security groups on every server. 
In an AD environment, you set up accounts and groups once.  Similarly, with client machines, if you have a workgroup and you want to allow users to log onto any computer, you have to set up user accounts on every computer.  In an AD environment,
you only have to set up the accounts once and then join all the client machines to the domain.
.:|:.:|:. tim