I have completed week 33 of my MCSE studies, and overall, I was pleased by the results. I finished the KnowledgeNet 70-410 Live Learning course, finished chapters 3 and 4 in the 70-410 training guide, had a little bit of time learning PowerShell, and spent some more time going over my exam notes. I also started exercising this week. I am fortunate that my wife cared enough to drag me out twice this past week for an hour long walk with some of our friends. I really need the exercise, especially now, with my sedentary lifestyle. I think I shall continue the exercise, it seems to help my brain think.
Cool Stuff
I have learned a lot of cool stuff this past week, but I think the biggest victory for me, was finally getting around to figuring out how PowerShell DSC (Desired State Configuration) works. I have been hearing a lot about it in the PowerScripting podcast, but had never got around to learning how to use it, as it is generally considered an advanced PowerShell topic. However, once I discovered it was covered on the 70-410 exam, I knew I had to tackle it head on. I did, and I discovered just how much potential it has to reduce administrative burden, and just how easy it is to use. In a nutshell, DSC is a way to ensure that the servers in a network environment conform to a set configurations, and that any new servers also, automatically, get the same configurations. If you want to know more about DSC, there is a great presentation here:
PowerShell cmdlet of the Week
This week's cmdlet is one I used to setup a multi-domain forest in Active Directory over the past few days.
Install-ADDSDomain
Allow me to describe one of the scenarios I where I used this cmdlet.
I had an existing forest root domain called "corp.contoso.com" and I wanted to add a child domain called "europe.corp.contoso.com". I also wanted to ensure that a DNS delegation was setup in the corp.contoso.com domain.
The new server was setup as a member of a workgroup, DNS client configured to point to two of the DNS servers in the corp.contoso.com domain, and had the AD Domain Services role installed.
It is important to remember that when you are adding a new child domain to an existing Active Directory forest, you must supply the credentials for a user in the 'Enterprise Admins' group. Also, even though it is not required, I explicitly stated that I wanted to setup a DNS delegation, and provided the credentials. Finally, again, even though the default parameter for the -DomainType switch is ChildDomain, I added it anyhow, as I wanted to gain as much familiarity as I could with this cmdlet. The final result for this command, also employing Get-Credential:
Install-ADDSDomain `
-NewDomainName europe `
-ParentDomainName corp.contoso.com `
-Credential (Get-Credential corp\Administrator) `
-CreateDnsDelegation
-DnsDelegationCredential (Get-Credential corp\Administrator) `
-DomainType ChildDomain
After entering the password for the corp\Administrator user, I entered the DSRM (Directory Services Restore Mode) password and confirmed it, hit 'Enter' and sat back and waited. A few minutes and one reboot later I had a new child domain created. I logged into one of the DNS servers in the corp.contoso.com domain, and confirmed that the DNS delegation was created successfully.
Of course, I made sure I conformed to Microsoft best practices, and I used Install-ADDSDomainController to add another writable domain controller to the Europe domain. Maybe I'll cover that cmdlet another day.
There we are, one new child domain, lovingly created with Windows PowerShell!
Stats
Total time studying: 25 hrs.
- 70-410: 24 hrs. 25 min.
- PowerShell: 35 min.
Resources used:
In Closing
I had another really good week. My confidence level is finally up the point where I feel that I will be able to pass the 70-410 exam. I will still need to continue to study for another 2-3 weeks, but I will get there. Just a few more weeks, then I can focus on 70-411!
Have a great week everyone!
In Closing
I had another really good week. My confidence level is finally up the point where I feel that I will be able to pass the 70-410 exam. I will still need to continue to study for another 2-3 weeks, but I will get there. Just a few more weeks, then I can focus on 70-411!
Have a great week everyone!
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