Is the best (or only) way for managing users in MS Sharepoint Active Directory?
I'm studying, and i have been buiding a little project to learn, and i'm using active directory to manage my dummy users, but it doesn't seem like a very practical way for doing so.
However, in organizations with thousands of users, it’s more realistic to add Active Directory security groups to a SharePoint site group. This not only reduces administrative overhead when you first set up a site, but also means the site’s membership stays up-to-date as new users join or leave the organization. As you add users to the Active Directory security group, they are automatically assigned to the SharePoint site group that has been associated with the security group
I think you have to use both SharePoint groups and Active Directory groups.
Active directory groups work well in instances where you want to give access to a large number of users (like Authenicated Users) or to groups that already exist, such as the Marketing group.
SharePoint groups work well for granting access to a small group of users who don't share a common Active Directory group.
In either case, it's a best practice to add users to groups first, then apply the group permissions to the resources on your site.
You can provide authentication to SharePoint via something other than Active Directory if you're willing to write an authentication provider.
Given that you're learning, and writing a provider is an exercise in itself, I think the built in solution using the domain is your best bet. Until you are comfortable with the rest of SharePoint, I wouldn't attempt to craft an auth provider for it.
SharePoint does allow Forms Based authentication so you can use SQL groups ... this isn't very practical in terms of Enterprise usage though. SharePoint is an Enterprise Collaboration Platform. It is not very good nor does it provide a registration type mechanism. But for sample purposes you can change it to use forms based auth and manage users using the built in ASP.NET management tools.
FYI ... Active Directory groups and SharePoint groups are different things.