Week 32 of my MCSE studies was not quite as solid a week as I had hoped for, but I still made some progress. I continued the KnowledgeNet 70-410 Live Learning course, started and finished the KnowledgeNet PowerShell 101 Live Learning course, finished the first two chapters in the 70-410 training guide, and spent quite a bit of time going over and organizing my exam notes. I lost a chunk of one day due to a headache that made concentrating quite difficult, and another day due to family obligations. The day I had family obligations was not really lost, as I had a great time with my kids building cardboard airplanes and other fun activities.
Cool Stuff
The coolest thing from week 32 was working with the Windows Server Migration Tools (WSMT). It was nice to not only learn about how it works, but I also spent a few hours in my lab environment migrating the DHCP role from a Windows Server 2008 R2 server to a 2012 R2 server with all settings, reservation, and leases intact. Very cool! I wrote down quite a few notes while I worked through the process, and I have the general flow figured out now. Finally, I can strike WSMT off the list of thing I still need to learn prior to taking the exam.
PowerShell cmdlet of the Week
This week's cmdlet is going to be one of many I used during the DHCP server migration I did this past week.
New-NetFirewallRule
I know it might have been easier to do this using the GUI tools, or perhaps the netsh command line tool (perhaps not), but I would have lost an opportunity to familiarize myself with this new cmdlet. While working on various tasks, I always ask myself "Could I be doing this in PowerShell?". That way, I regularly give myself an opportunity to learn new cmdlets and techniques,
I used it to open up an inbound port to allow WSMT to work it's magic. In this case I used it to create and enable an inbound rule to allow TCP traffic on port 7000, but only on the Domain firewall profile.
New-NetFirewallRule `
-DisplayName "WSMT - Port 7000" `
-Direction Inbound `
-Action Allow `
–LocalPort 7000 `
-Protocol TCP `
-Profile Domain `
-Enabled True
A quick check of the GUI interface for the firewall confirmed that it had been created.
There it is! A firewall rule created, and another PowerShell cmdlet added to my sysadmin tool belt.
* I have decided to start using the back-tick character " ` " in my blog posts to break up a single PowerShell command over several lines. I have noticed that the readability of some of my older posts is a little tricky at times, so by using the ` , I can post a long cmdlet and still have it readable. This is also valid to use at the PowerShell prompt. Typing ` at the end of New-NetFirewallRule will give you a >> prompt, which you can use to enter parameters one at a time. When you are done, simply press 'Enter' to execute the command.
Stats
Total time studying: 25 hrs. 50 min.
- 70-410: 19 hrs. 50 min.
- PowerShell: 6 hrs.
Resources used:
In Closing
While I did not get as much study time in as I would have liked, I did get more in than last week. A little bit more focus next week should ensure I get the time in I need to study for and pass the 70-410 exam. I had also planned to get an Office 365 subscription and sign up for the free trial of Microsoft Azure last week, but time did not permit that, so I will work on that this coming week as well. With a little luck, and a lot of hard work, I should be able to get back on schedule.
Have a great week everyone!
In Closing
While I did not get as much study time in as I would have liked, I did get more in than last week. A little bit more focus next week should ensure I get the time in I need to study for and pass the 70-410 exam. I had also planned to get an Office 365 subscription and sign up for the free trial of Microsoft Azure last week, but time did not permit that, so I will work on that this coming week as well. With a little luck, and a lot of hard work, I should be able to get back on schedule.
Have a great week everyone!
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