70-411 Administering Windows Server 2012 : My take

411 (first attempt) is in the books. I did ok, but not well enough to pass and not near where I thought I my knowledge level was.

I’ve been working with Server 2012 fairly in depth for over 6 months in preparation of deploying my new Test Playground for the various teams that use Microsoft Products. To date I’ve gotten over 30 Windows Server 2012 machines running, 4 failover clusters, SC : VMM, CCM, COM, ORC, etc, as well as established DHCP servers, DNS servers, and Domain Controllers. I felt that this experience, along with a few prep resources should be sufficient.

Let’s go over the prep resources I used.

Windows Server 70-417 Upgrade Exam Jumpstart

This was a great overview of all of the topics that are included in the 70-417 upgrade exam. It was a good starting point as it led me to look at things that I had never seen before. It’s about “a mile wide and an inch deep” so this is not all that needed to be done.

TrainSignal Windows Server 2012 Administering (70-411)

Working through #90Days2MCSE I got free access to this course. I went through it rather rapidly and slowed down at the stuff that was unfamiliar to me. Once again, I believe that this course only takes you “a mile wide and an inch deep”. Without violating the NDA that I’m sure I signed when I took the test, the level of detail that was on the test was much deeper than this. There was a very heavy emphasis on NPS and how it is applied in the environment. If you haven’t spent any time on this physically working with it in a lab or prod environment, I highly suggest that you do before you take the test. There were other questions that went to a level of detail that I did not get to such as which tab to choose in a certain scenario, testing your knowledge of the layout and use of the product.

So what do I do now?

Looks like going back and hitting up the talking points again, and actually deploying some of the stuff I haven’t seen : DA, NPS, DNS, VPN, NAP. It’s obvious that my points lie in the networking sphere as I did fairly well on the server and Active Directory stuff (but know your precedence!). I plan on using resources from Born To Learn to start setting up these items in more detail in my lab environment.

Further, I am going to buy a voucher from Prometric which includes a free second shot with purchase (hopefully I won’t need it, but I’m hedging my bets right now) and get another seating scheduled as soon as possible. I have a very hectic schedule with lots of night work going on right now, so it is going to be more difficult than usual but I’ve committed to a goal of getting my MCSA by the time TechEd2013 starts, and then possibly working towards getting my MCSE during TechEd to take advantage of the 50% off deal

Ok, back to work slacker! I’ve got other work to complete before pulling my resources together and getting started. I hope everyone involved gets something out of this, and if you have any questions at all about my exam experience (short of me telling you the questions I had) feel free to contact me either here (slow response) or on Twitter @mke077 and I will be glad to help any way that I can. Also keep a look out on Born To Learn as well Michael Bender’s blog for more insights into the 411 exam.

Good Luck To All!

Adding a Second VM Network to An Existing Logical Network

In the test Hyper-v/SCVMM environment, it was determined that some predefined networks needed to be added to our new PoC virtualization environments. This was due to the test/qa system being hardcoded with certain information. Rather than re-ip and deal with the nightmare that surrounds that, I opted to add a VLAN segment to the existing Logical Network that I had already built.

First step was to identify the VLAN tag for the subnet that needed to be trunked to this cluster. A few phone calls later and my local network admin had the VLANs I needed identified and trunked to the ports I was already using for the Hyper-v cluster in question.

Next, I needed to add the VLAN information to my existing Logical Network. From SCVMM, I navigated to the Fabric tab, and under networking chose Logical Networks. I located the Logical Network that I had previously setup for virtual machines and management and opened its properties.

At this point, I chose Insert Row and added my VLAN information for the new subnet that we were adding to the cluster.

My build process relies on IP pools to set addresses so I don’t have a DHCP server on these segments. That means I needed to add an IP Pool to my Logical Network for the new subnet, so the servers would get an IP to continue the automated build process. After right clicking the Logical Network and choosing Create New IP Pool, I named the Pool

and then changed the IP Subnet to the new subnet that I had just created.

I then added a Range for the Pool, added the Gateway and DNS information for the connections and completed.

Now, when I build a VM, I choose my default network to connect to, enable VLAN on the network connection, and from the drop down choose the VLAN I created in the previous steps.

Now I can add as many VLANs as I need to build out the various test environments required by our QA teams in the lab

 

Get it while it’s hot

Active Directory Powershell Cmdlets

just because Michael Bender challenged me, and I didn’t want to clutter twitter, here they are :

Add-ADCentralAccessPolicyMember

Add-ADComputerServiceAccount

Add-ADDomainControllerPasswordReplicationPolicy

Add-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicySubject

Add-ADGroupMember

Add-ADPrincipalGroupMembership

Add-ADResourcePropertyListMember

Clear-ADAccountExpiration

Clear-ADClaimTransformLink

Disable-ADAccount

Disable-ADOptionalFeature

Enable-ADAccount

Enable-ADOptionalFeature

Get-ADAccountAuthorizationGroup

Get-ADAccountResultantPasswordReplicationPolicy

Get-ADCentralAccessPolicy

Get-ADCentralAccessRule

Get-ADClaimTransformPolicy

Get-ADClaimType

Get-ADComputer

Get-ADComputerServiceAccount

Get-ADDCCloningExcludedApplicationList

Get-ADDefaultDomainPasswordPolicy

Get-ADDomain

Get-ADDomainController

Get-ADDomainControllerPasswordReplicationPolicy

Get-ADDomainControllerPasswordReplicationPolicy…

Get-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicy

Get-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicySubject

Get-ADForest

Get-ADGroup

Get-ADGroupMember

Get-ADObject

Get-ADOptionalFeature

Get-ADOrganizationalUnit

Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembership

Get-ADReplicationAttributeMetadata

Get-ADReplicationConnection

Get-ADReplicationFailure

Get-ADReplicationPartnerMetadata

Get-ADReplicationQueueOperation

Get-ADReplicationSite

Get-ADReplicationSiteLink

Get-ADReplicationSiteLinkBridge

Get-ADReplicationSubnet

Get-ADReplicationUpToDatenessVectorTable

Get-ADResourceProperty

Get-ADResourcePropertyList

Get-ADResourcePropertyValueType

Get-ADRootDSE

Get-ADServiceAccount

Get-ADTrust

Get-ADUser

Get-ADUserResultantPasswordPolicy

Install-ADServiceAccount

Move-ADDirectoryServer

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole

Move-ADObject

New-ADCentralAccessPolicy

New-ADCentralAccessRule

New-ADClaimTransformPolicy

New-ADClaimType

New-ADComputer

New-ADDCCloneConfigFile

New-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicy

New-ADGroup

New-ADObject

New-ADOrganizationalUnit

New-ADReplicationSite

New-ADReplicationSiteLink

New-ADReplicationSiteLinkBridge

New-ADReplicationSubnet

New-ADResourceProperty

New-ADResourcePropertyList

New-ADServiceAccount

New-ADUser

Remove-ADCentralAccessPolicy

Remove-ADCentralAccessPolicyMember

Remove-ADCentralAccessRule

Remove-ADClaimTransformPolicy

Remove-ADClaimType

Remove-ADComputer

Remove-ADComputerServiceAccount

Remove-ADDomainControllerPasswordReplicationPolicy

Remove-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicy

Remove-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicySubject

Remove-ADGroup

Remove-ADGroupMember

Remove-ADObject

Remove-ADOrganizationalUnit

Remove-ADPrincipalGroupMembership

Remove-ADReplicationSite

Remove-ADReplicationSiteLink

Remove-ADReplicationSiteLinkBridge

Remove-ADReplicationSubnet

Remove-ADResourceProperty

Remove-ADResourcePropertyList

Remove-ADResourcePropertyListMember

Remove-ADServiceAccount

Remove-ADUser

Rename-ADObject

Reset-ADServiceAccountPassword

Restore-ADObject

Search-ADAccount

Set-ADAccountControl

Set-ADAccountExpiration

Set-ADAccountPassword

Set-ADCentralAccessPolicy

Set-ADCentralAccessRule

Set-ADClaimTransformLink

Set-ADClaimTransformPolicy

Set-ADClaimType

Set-ADComputer

Set-ADDefaultDomainPasswordPolicy

Set-ADDomain

Set-ADDomainMode

Set-ADFineGrainedPasswordPolicy

Set-ADForest

Set-ADForestMode

Set-ADGroup

Set-ADObject

Set-ADOrganizationalUnit

Set-ADReplicationConnection

Set-ADReplicationSite

Set-ADReplicationSiteLink

Set-ADReplicationSiteLinkBridge

Set-ADReplicationSubnet

Set-ADResourceProperty

Set-ADResourcePropertyList

Set-ADServiceAccount

Set-ADUser

Sync-ADObject

Test-ADServiceAccount

Uninstall-ADServiceAccount

Unlock-ADAccount

Going to the Big Show!

Miracle of miracles! The approval went through and I’ve just finished booking air and hotel for Microsoft TechEd 2013. Can’t wait to see #theKrewe in all of their splendor in the Big Easy. This will be my first trip to NOLA and based on the stories from previous TechEds I’m really looking forward to seeing the city.

I’ll be rolling in on Saturday afternoon, see y’all then

Azure 90-day Trial

A good friend on Twitter pointed out that you can get a 90-day free trial of Microsoft Azure and sign up to win a free pass to MS TechEd 2013 (among other great prizes, but let’s be honest, MSTE is the grand daddy of all prizes). So I’m all signed up and even looking at a WordPress blog on Azure. Stay tuned, if this looks like a cool way to go this site may be moving!

For any of you that might be out there with an Azure account already, you can still sign up for the trial. If you don’t need/want the pass to TechEd2013, there are quite a few deserving folks that would love to have it. If you do win and want to help out a fellow geek, let me know and I can get you in contact with one.

<insert catch phrase here>

Is That a Mouse in Your Pocket…..

No, it really is a mouse, and a tiny one. I just garnered the latest mouse craze from Microsoft Hardware, the Microsoft Wedge Mouse. Being really attached to my Arc Touch mouse (if for no other reason than it looks like a Star Trek phaser) I was excited to test out the latest in pointing technology.

 

Out of the box it is almost unimpressive, measuring a mere 2.39” x 2.11” and .9” thick at it’s widest, it’s almost invisible at 1.1 ounces. The box itself weights almost 7x the mouse! Not included in the box : a working battery (dead on arrival), a storage bag or a BT adapter fob.

A quick look reveals two buttons on the bottom

The first is a slide that unlocks the side battery compartment, the second is the power/discover button. That’s it.

 

I started by tethering up with Asus EP121 which already has built in bluetooth capability and was less than happy. The connection died on a frequent basis and I had to keep rediscovering it. However, the 4-way touch scrolling (when it worked) was really fantastic and the mouse was very smooth to work with. It was quite a learning curve trying to get by having only this tiny device under my fingertips, it felt uncomfortable I was soon yearning for the comfortable palm support of my Arc Touch.

My current laptop, a Lenovo 420 was next up. As it doesn’t have built-in BT capability I went out and got a Rocketfish BT adapter. I was a bit disappointed that an adapter was not included with the mouse, but given that this mouse is really meant more for tablet applications and most tablets have BT already embedded, I grudgingly went out and got the adapter.

Having had a few days to acclimate to the paradigm shift of the finger tip mouse, I am growing more comfortable with the new way of handling the mouse, using my thumb and ring finger to move the mouse, leaving my index and middle finger available for clicking and scrolling. Using the Rocketfish adapter I immediately got better results with tethering. Several continuous hours of work with the mouse and the connection has yet to drop, so I can only assume the original drops had to do with the age of my Asus tablet (dear Mom, I would like a Surface Pro for my birthday).

Amusingly enough, my co-workers were wondering how I was using a mouse, as my quite large hands mostly hide the Wedge from view.

Overall, the mouse is growing on me, but it still causes me much more fatigue than my Arc Touch for long sessions. I would have liked to see pinch and zoom available for this device, but even in trying to see if it would work, it was extremely awkward, so I would not recommend this form factor if it had the capability. Side by side, I’ll take my Arc, but for sheer coolness factor the Wedge gets major props. At nearly $70 retail, it’s an expensive prop, but for a tablet work this would make a great addition due it’s very small form factor.

Question of the Day : When is there enough technology?

I posed the question on twitter today :  how many of you are getting to a point of wanting LESS technology, not more?

The reason I ask, is the other day someone I know was trying to convince a mutual friend that they needed a smart phone, rather than the feature phone they were currently using. Their feature phone could get text messages and email, but can’t connect to the internet, get apps, etc. I spun the question on the asker, what is it on a smart phone that you can’t live without, even for your job. The main thing they kept coming back to was ‘the apps’. We looked at the apps that they had and found most of them were either time wasters, function duplicators (a ruler? really?), or basic internet connections (SaaS)

All this got me thinking, we keep inventing and rolling out the latest and greatest technologies. We seem to need them, and $deity knows we’re being told we live sub-par lives without them….but are we? Or, are we leading sub-par lives with them?

Think on this the next time you walk down the street, how many people do you see with their noses buried in their smart phones? Does anyone smile and say hello anymore?

Don’t get me wrong, I like technology, I see great places and great enhancements in what I do every day. Virtualization was an invention, iPhone5 is not.

thoughts?

How do you study?

Is a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. Kids, house, job, trying to get in shape (round is a shape right?) and everything else seems to be derailing me every step of the way. I’ve been searching for a way to study in those small gaps where I’m not coordinating replacing every domain controller in the company and replacing every server in every store. More frustratingly, how do find 15 minutes to post what I’ve found??

Well, my 3 followers, I’ve started by arming myself with portable training. I’ve found that I learn and retain nearly nothing from reading things on the internet, specifically reading off of a screen. That includes my 24” wide screen, my WP7, my iPad (may it rest in pieces), and every other illuminated source. Not sure why, it just is.

So what is this portable training you speak of? I’ve discovered PAPER! This stuff is amazing! I can carry it in a folder, in a pocket, in your hand, and they even have a bunch of it all together in these things called books! Amazing I know.

All Ludite-like sarcasm aside, I’ve been using the Skills Measured for 411 to pull individual topics from the TechNet Library. The TechNet Library has a cool function that allows you to browse the entire TechNet Library and add topics as you find them to a ‘list’ of topics you would like to print for later perusal. On the top of the page, you’ll see the usual ‘print this page’ printer icon with a drop down box. Choose ‘print multiple topics’ and follow the instructions. When you are done, TechNet will compile your set of selections into a .pdf that you can print out with the value add of a table of contents.

Now you have a stack of papers (duplex please) that you can hide in your project docs and read when you’re supposed to be  paying attention to the PM or your manager drone on about ‘the business’ is demanding that you implement wireless power to charge their iPhones next week.

Knowing what works for you is a very important part of the learning process (my wife refers to it as learning how to learn). Some people can absorb tons of material in one sitting, others, only small amounts at a time. Some need to read it and do it immediately, others can read and get it just from that. Others require absolute quiet with no interruptions while still others need Bach or Metallica screaming in their ears to get in the zone. Whatever it is, you need to figure you out what works first. Experiment and see what you find out, and if you find out something new…share it! Someone else out there may never have thought about what you found and you may be the reason they excel (pun intended).

So, on my front, using my small bites training style, I’m gearing up to take 411 in the next 3 weeks. I’ve got a week of vacation with kids coming up and a little quiet reading time is just what the doctor ordered. I want to schedule the test the day I get back. I’ll keep you posted on results (fingers crossed).

As always, keep an eye on Born to Learn , and rumor has it a new twitter hash tag may be releasing soon so keep an eye out for #90days2MCSA for some good resources and fellow certification travelers to help out with your mission.

<insert catch phrase here> (I should really start a content to get that filled)

P

Road to MCSA : The Next Mile 70-411

Well the 60Days thing went kind of bust, and I fell out of even thinking about certification after TechEd. Busy project schedules and lack of motivation pretty much ensured that certification didn’t cross my mind.

However, I got a piece of good news a month back or so : I passed both the Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 Install/config beta exams while I was at TechEd! Well, that got me to thinking certification all over again (again). With having a start down the MCSA : Server 2012 by passing the 70-410, it’s now time to see what I can do to motivate myself to get the remaining two : 411 (Administering) and 412 (Configuring Advanced Services).

The great part about where I work is that there is always room for some lab stuff and trying out the latest and greatest. I’ve started by crafting an entire Server 2012 and System Center 2012 based environment for me to get a bit more experience. Also, I want to showcase, to our upper level architects, how this environment can be applied to our current and future needs to keep us moving in the right direction.

I’m using Hyper-v as the infrastructure on which to build, and also integrating some vmWare management to get a taste of that as well. On top of that I’ve built a replica .local domain structure of our current architecture. My next steps are to get the services setup to mimic what we have today (SCOM, SCCM, WDS, IIS, DHCP).

The trouble is that there isn’t much training material out there that isn’t completely centered on taking the exam. I’m more interested in learning the tech than learning only how to take an exam. If you are going to get certified, it should be to show that you know the material, not that you know how to pass a test. That was the issue with the MCSE previously. Hiring managers, peers, and even HR folks I knew really discounted the MCP/MCSA/MCSE certifications because so many people just did brain dumps and didn’t actually know what to do when presented with an interface or a command line.

I’ve started scouring the available resources out there and found a few that I wanted to document/share.

What to Expect

First spot that I’ve been to before, and comes as a highly suggested tip from my friend Michael Bender MCT/MVP : check the skills being measured page

I’ve found, that there are some areas that I can spend less time on, as I’m quite familiar with the 2008R2 way of doing them and in some areas, there has been no change. How to figure that out is coming up shortly.

What You Know and What You Don’t

Now, I need to figure out the area I need to target my research on, not only for the exams, but for how any changes to my work environment can and will be affected. A few months back (October) Rick Claus and Ed Liberman presented a JumpStart on preparing for the Upgrading Skills to Server 2012 exam (70-417). This is especially helpful in my case as they are going over essentially all of the ‘Skills Being Measured’ and giving you a quick overview of what’s new, what’s changed, and what’s the same. In addition to being quite entertaining, it gave me two days of intense concentration on the subject matter. Now, I have to go back a re-watch the sessions with an eye towards the Skillz list. You can watch the entire series here

Getting Connected

Part of what helps me out is being connected with other folks that are interested in pursuing advanced technical certifications as well as keeping up to date on the latest Microsoft technology. To that end I’ve found two groups to work with :

1. #theKrewe : this is a group whose origins center around Microsoft TechEd. They meet (in person) once a year at TechEd, but maintain a large a vibrant community of IT Pros, IT Devs, and IT Management. This group bounces not only question and ideas about IT products off each other, but also just about everything else. They tend to the fun side but there always seems to be someone in the world wide connected group that can help with any problem, question, or complaint.

2. Born To Learn : this is Microsoft’s learning community site. Many great topics are discussed and a large group of experts seem to always be hanging around to help. I’ve found many sources to examine for training material.

Find the Training Materials that Do Exist

I’ve been doing my research and so far the only book to be released has been for the Upgrade exam. I’ve grabbed a copy of that from SafariBooksOnline and started reading it. I’m hoping that this will work to reinforce what I’ve found in the JumpStarts

I’ve also found the MVA (Microsoft Virtual Academy). They have lots of good free courses that you can take at your leisure. This is the current list I’m going through now

• Windows Server 2012: Server Virtualization
• Windows Server 2012: Technical Overview
• Windows Server 2012: Storage
• Windows Server 2012: Identity and Access
• Using Solution Accelerators to Prepare for Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2012: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
• Windows Server 2012: Networking
• Windows Server 2012: Management & Automation
• Windows Server 2012: Web and Application Platform

If you find any other good resources, please feel free to share either here, Twitter (@mke077) or on Born To Learn!

 

 

Side Note : thanks to @shih_wei for kicking my butt into writing again #boots2asses and hopefully getting me back on track to certification