Windows groups in geodatabases in SQL Server

A Windows group is a collection of logins that inherit their permissions from membership in the group. Built-in groups exist locally, such as Administrators or Power Users, and user-defined groups can be created at the local and domain levels as well.

Granting a Windows group access to SQL Server rather than individual Windows logins can simplify creation and management of logins. Rather than adding the logins to SQL Server individually, the group is added. All members of the group can log in to SQL Server. Their privileges on the server and in individual databases are inherited from their group membership. Therefore, any privilege granted to the group automatically applies to every member of the group.

Note:

You cannot create one schema to store the data created by all the group members. Each user in the group who creates data in the geodatabase must have his or her own schema in which to store the data. SQL Server creates a user and schema in the database the first time a group member creates data. This happens automatically; do not create a schema and user manually.

Use of Windows groups that contain members who can own data is supported in ArcGIS 9.2 and later releases.