NetWare 3.x servers each have their own database of userids, groups, print queues, and so on, called the Bindery. NetWare 4.x replaced these individual, server specific, Binderies with one network wide database of all userids, groups and other network object, which is shared by all the servers on the network. This shared database is NDS, Novell Directory Services. NDS is organized as a tree structure, similar to a file system. File systems contain files and directories.
Files contain data.
In NDS, there are Leaf objects, comparable to files, and Container objects, comparable to directories. Leaf objects are used for the types of objects familiar from NetWare 3.x, userids and groups, print queues and print servers, volumes and servers, etc. Container objects are used to organize NDS into work groups, the way UMR has used the xxxx-DEPT groups under NetWare 3.x. NDS Containers work like the xxxx-DEPT groups, only better, because all the objects belonging to a group are part of the group's NDS container, not just the userid objects. Rights to administer a container allow management of all the objects in the container.