Microsoft Official Course

Module 1

Deploying and Managing

Windows Server 2012

Windows Server 2012 Editions

Windows Server 2012 editions:
Windows Server 2012 Standard operating system
Windows Server 2012 Datacenter operating system

Windows Server 2012 Foundation operating system

Windows Server 2012 Essentials operating system
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012
Windows Storage Server 2012 Workgroup operating system
Windows Storage Server 2012 Standard operating system
Windows MultiPoint Server 2012 Standard operating system
Windows MultiPoint Server 2012 Premium operating system

What Is Server Core?

Server Core

Is a more secure, less resource-intensive

installation option
Can be converted to the graphical version of
Windows Server 2012
Is the default installation option for Windows
Server 2012
Is managed locally using sconfig.cmd or
Windows PowerShell
If you enable remote management, you will
rarely need to log on locally

Windows Server 2012 Roles

Functions

Web Server
Domain Controller
Certificate Server
Roles

Are made up of role services components that

provide additional functionality associated with
the role
In Server Manager 2012, console servers with a
similar role are grouped together
Role deployment also includes the
configuration of dependencies

What Are the Windows Server 2012 Features?

Features:
Are components that support the server such
as Windows Server Backup or Failover
clustering
Usually do not provide a service directly to
clients on the network
Keep in mind the following points:
Roles can have features as dependencies
Features on Demand are features that need to
be installed using a mounted image as a source

Lesson 2: Overview of Windows Server 2012

Management
What Is Server Manager?
Administrative Tools and Remote Server

Administration Tools
Demonstration: Using Server Manager
Configuring Services
Configuring Windows Remote Management

What Is Server Manager?

You can use Server Manager to:
Manage multiple servers on a
network from one console
Add roles and features
Launch Windows PowerShell sessions
View events
Perform server configuration tasks

Administrative Tools and Remote Server

Administration Tools
Administrative tools:

Active Directory Administrative Center

Active Directory Users and Computers
DNS console
Event Viewer
Group Policy Management Console
IIS Manager
Performance Monitor
Resource Monitor
Task Scheduler

Overview of Post-Installation Configuration

Configuring Server Network Settings

How to Join a Domain

Information necessary
for a domain join:
Domain name
Account with
permission to join
computer to domain

Performing an Offline Domain Join

Process for performing an offline join:
1. Ensure the user performing the offline domain join is an
administrator, or delegate the appropriate rights
2. To provision the computer account object and create the
binary file, run djoin on the domain controller
3. Transfer the binary file with the domain information to
client computer systems hard disk drive
4. To load the binary file, in the destination computer, run
djoin
5. Restart the client computer

Windows Server
2012

Activating Windows Server 2012

Configuring a Server Core Installation

Module Overview
Overview of Storage
Managing Disks and Volumes
Implementing Storage Spaces

Disk Types and Performance

As performance
increases, so does
cost

SSD

SAS
SCSI

Performance

SATA
EIDE

Cost

What Is Direct Attached Storage?

DAS disks are physically attached to the server
Advantages:

Disadvantages:

Easy to configure
Inexpensive solution

Isolated because it
attaches only to a single
server
Slower

Server with attached disks

What Is Network Attached Storage?

NAS is storage that is attached to a dedicated storage
device and accessed through network shares
Advantages:
Relatively inexpensive

NAS Device

Easy to configure

Disadvantages:
Slower access times
Not an enterprise solution

NAS offers centralized storage at an

affordable price

Local Area Network

(Ethernet)
File-level access
(CIFS, NFS)
File Server

What Is a SAN?
SANs offers higher availability with the most flexibility
Advantages:
Servers

Fastest access times

Easily expandable
Centralized storage

Switches

High level of redundancy

Disadvantages:
More expensive
Storage Devices

Requires specialized skills

SANs can be implemented using Fibre Channel or iSCSI

What Is RAID?

RAID combines multiple disks into a single logical unit

to provide fault tolerance and performance

RAID provides fault tolerance by using:

Disk mirroring
Parity information

RAID can provide performance benefits by spreading

disk I/O across multiple disks

RAID can be configured using several different levels

RAID should not replace server backups

RAID Levels
RAID
RAID1+0
6
RAID 0
1
5
Each pair of disks is mirrored, then the mirrored disks

Block level striped set with parity distributed across

are
striped
all
disks
Block level Striped
striped set
set without
with parity
distributed
across all disks
parity
or mirroring
Mirrored
drives

Selecting a Partition Table Format

MBR
Standard Partition table format since early 1980s
Supports a maximum of 4 primary partitions per drive
Can partition a disk up to 2 TB
GPT
GPT is the successor of MBR partition table format
Supports a maximum of 128 partitions per drive
Can partition a disk up to 18 EB
Use MBR for disks smaller than 2 TB

Use GPT for disks larger than 2 TB

Selecting a Disk Type

Basic disks are:
Disks initialized for basic storage
The default storage for Windows operating system
Dynamic disks can:
Be modified without restarting Windows
Provide several options for configuring volumes
Disk volume requirements include:
A system volume for hardware-specific files that are
required to start the server
A boot volume for the Windows operating system files

Selecting a File System

When selecting a file system, consider the differences between
FAT, NTFS, and ReFS
FAT provides:
Basic file system
Partition size limitations
FAT32 to enable larger disks
exFAT developed for flash drives

NTFS provides:
Metadata
Auditing and journaling
Security (ACLs and encryption)
ReFS provides:
Backward compatibility support for NTFS
Enhanced data verification and error correction
Support for larger files, directories, volumes, etc.

What Is ReFS?
ReFS is a new file system that is built in to Windows
Server 2012. Advantages include:

Metadata integrity with checksums

Integrity streams with user data integrity
Allocation on write transactional model
Large volume, file, and directory sizes (2^78 bytes with
16-KB cluster size)
Storage pooling and virtualization
Data striping for performance and redundancy
Disk scrubbing for protection against latent disk errors
Resiliency to corruptions with recovery
Shared storage pools across machines

What Are Mount Points and Links?

A mount point is a reference to a location on a disk that
enables Windows operating system access to disk resources

Use volume mount points:

To mount volumes or disks as folders instead of using drive
letters
When you do not have drive letters available for creating new
volumes
To add disk space without changing the folder structure

A link file contains a reference to another file or directory

Link options:
Symbolic file link (or, soft link)
Symbolic directory link (or, directory junctions)

Extending and Shrinking Volumes

You can resize NTFS volumes from the Windows

operating system, beginning with Windows Vista and

Windows Server 2008

When you want to resize a disk, consider the following:

You can extend or shrink NTFS volumes

ReFS volumes can only be extended

FAT/FAT32/exFAT cannot be resized
You can shrink a volume only up to immovable files
Bad clusters on a disk will prevent you from shrinking
a volume

What Is the Storage Spaces Feature?

Use storage spaces to add physical disks of any type and
size to a storage pool, and then create highly-available
virtual disks from the storage pool
To create a virtual disk, you need the
following:

One or more physical disks

Storage pool that includes the disks
Virtual drives that are created with disks from

the storage pool

Disk drives that are based on virtual drives

Disk Drive

Virtual Disk
Storage Pool

Physical Disks

Virtual drives are not virtual hard disks (VHDs); they should
be considered a drive in Disk Manager

Virtual Disk Configuration Options

Feature

Options

Storage Layout

Simple
Two-way or three-way mirror
Parity

Disk sector size

512 or 512e

Drive allocation

Automatic
Hot Spare

Provisioning schemes Thin vs. fixed provisioning

Advanced Management Options for Storage Spaces

Basic Management for Storage Spaces is available in Server
Manager
For disk failure:
Do not use chkdsk or scan disk
Remove the drive and add a new one
Advanced management requires Windows PowerShell
Windows PowerShell cmdlet
Get-StoragePool
Repair-VirtualDisk
Get-PhysicalDisk |
Where{$_.HealthStatus -ne Healthy}
Reset-PhysicalDisk
Get-VirtualDisk |
Get-PhysicalDisk

Description
List storage pools
Repair a virtual disk
List unhealthy physical disks
Remove a physical disk from a
storage pool
List physical disks used for a
virtual disk