MCSE Studying - Week 25

Overview
During week 25 of my MCSE studies I have continued the three Live Learning courses from KnowledgeNet and listened to three episodes of the PowerScripting Podcast. Progress this past week was not as high as the previous week as I was working for a part of the time.

Cool Stuff
To be perfectly honest, I do not think there was anything that really stood out as being really cool. There was a lot of information learned, but there was no single item that stood out above the rest.

PowerShell cmdlet of the Week
This week , I'll choose a cmdlet related to the ones from Week 23: Get-ADForest and Get-ADDomain. This time however, instead of just viewing the Flexible Single Master Operation (FSMO) role holders, we'll actually change the role holder:

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole

I think this cmdlet just about takes the record for the longest cmdlet name.

Let's cover two possible usage scenarios:

Transfering a FSMO role to another Domain Controller
In this case, we are going to move the FSMO role of 'PDC Emulator' to a Domain Controller called DC01.contoso.com, while both online and available:

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity dc01.contoso.com -OperationMasterRole PDCEmulator

or, alternately, using the number for the role instead of the name, and dropping the -Identity, since this parameter is positional:

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole dc01.contoso.com -OperationMasterRole 0

Seizing a role from another Domain Controller
In this second example, we are going to seize the role of RID Master from a failed Domain Controller that cannot be recovered, and moving it to a Domain Controller called DC05.contoso.com

Move-ADDirectoryServerOperationMasterRole -Identity dc05.contoso.com -OperationMasterRole RIDMaster -Force

In this case, the addition of the -Force switch seizes the role from a failed Domain Controller.

As always, be sure you understand the implications of transferring FSMO roles prior to starting, and always take care not to bring a failed Domain Controller back online once you have seized a role from it.

For more information on this subject, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base Article:
Flexible Single Master Operation Transfer and Seizure Process

Stats
Total time studying: 16 hrs. 45 min.

• PowerShell: 3 hrs. 45 min.
• 70-411: 6 hrs.
• 70-413: 6 hrs.
• 70-341: 1 hr.

Resources used:

KnowledgeNet Live Learning Course: Administering Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2

KnowledgeNet Live Learning Course: Designing and Implementing a Server 2012 R2 Infrastructure

KnowledgeNet Live Learning Course: Core Solutions of Microsoft Exchange Server 2013

PowerScripting Podcast - Episodes 240, 251, & 254

In Closing
I did not get to spend quite as much time studying as I would have liked, but there were circumstances that required me to take some time off. This coming up week should be a little better, provided I get enough sleep. I also need to look at booking at least one exam, probably 70-410, before the end of the year. In addition to my studies, I also have an article on PowerShell to finish writing before the end of the month. It's going to be another busy week!

Have a great week everyone!