Windows Server 2019-Step by Step Installation of Domain Controller

As Microsoft has release new Windows Server 2019 with more enhanced features and security related stuff. We have preview editions available to take a look and drive it look more in depth. In this Lab we will see the installation of Windows Server

Tools for Troubleshooting IPv4 in Windows Server 2016.

This article focuses on tools that will help us to identify and resolve IP connectivity problems between hosts. Windows Server 2016 includes a number of command‑line tools that can help you diagnose network problems. These tools were commonly used in earlier Windows Server editions.

Ipconfig:- Ipconfig is a command‑line tool that displays the current TCP/IP network configuration. Additionally, you can use the ipconfig command to refresh DHCP and DNS settings. The following command‑line options for ipconfig.

Ipconfig /all:- View detailed configuration information.

Ipconfig /release:-  Release the leased configuration back to the DHCP server.

Ipconfig /Renew:-  Renew the leased configuration.

Ipconfig /displaydns:-  View the DNS resolver cache entries.

Ipconfig /flushdns:- Purge the DNS resolve cache.

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Step by Step MS SQL 17 Installation on CentOS Linux Release 7.4

Traditionally, Microsoft SQL Server, being part of Microsoft’s back office platform, has always run on Windows operating systems. However, Microsoft has made a commitment to enable customers to choose any platform. As part of this commitment, for SQL Server 2017,

Step by Step Changing Default Windows RDP Port with Advance Firewall

The requirement was to Secure Remote Access to Server in a private cloud infrastructure, where the customer wanted to provide RDP of Microsoft Windows Server with different RDP port other than the default one which shipped with default Windows installation.

Step by Step SharePoint Administration For Anyone

A fundamental responsibility concerning site security is to manage who can access resources on your site. SharePoint enables you, as a site owner, to control

Step by Step Domain Migration Windows 2008 to Windows 2012.

Active Directory is one of the most widely used services on enterprise networks. In addition to providing basic authentication and authorization services, Active Directory enables so many other capabilities that its popularity is no surprise.

Most of the people are still running Windows Server 2008 in the network and wants to safely migrate to Windows Server 2012 R2 edition. Windows Server 2012 R2 adds some significant new features to both Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS).

How to Create Fine Grained Password Policy in Server 2012

You can use fine-grained password policies to specify multiple password policies in a single domain and apply different restrictions for password and account lockout policies to different sets of users in a domain. For example, you can apply stricter settings to privileged accounts and less strict settings to the accounts of other users. In other cases,

Step by Step SharePoint 2016 Multi Server Installation for anyone.

SharePoint Server 2016 has been designed, developed, and tested with the Microsoft Software as a Service (SaaS) strategy, building on SharePoint Online as its core. Drawing extensively from that experience, SharePoint Server 2016 offers you new and improved, highly flexible deployment options. You can choose from a traditional on-premises deployment, a hosted service with Microsoft Office 365 sites powered by Microsoft SharePoint Online, deployment in Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), or a mix of these options with a hybrid approach, empowering you to choose how and when you take advantage of on-premises or cloud-based solutions, all without changing the user experience. Seamless integration with on-premises people experiences and taxonomy ensure a consistent experience within or beyond the firewall.

Step-by-Step 2 Node Hyper-V Replication.

Hyper v replication is use for Disaster recovery, A replica virtual machine is a complete, ready-to-run duplicate of the source virtual machine. It can be switched on and be up and running in a few moments. When this happens, HVR assumes that the source virtual machine is lost and unrecoverable. When the replica is activated it becomes the official copy of the virtual machine.

How to Extend Password Expiry Date in AD

Active directory account passwords expire set (for example, every 90 days) in most of the organizations. Configuring an AD account with Password

SCCM 2012 Step by Step For Anyone

A member of the Microsoft System Center suite of management solutions, System Center 2012 Configuration Manager increases IT productivity and efficiency by reducing manual tasks and letting you focus on high-value projects, maximize hardware and software investments, and empower end-user productivity by providing the right software at the right time.

Windows Server Update Services Step by Step for Anyone

Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) enables information technology administrators to deploy the latest Microsoft product updates. WSUS is a Windows Server, server role that can be installed to manage and distribute updates. A WSUS server can be the update source for other WSUS servers within the organization. The WSUS server that acts as an update source is called an upstream server. 

In a WSUS implementation, at least one WSUS server in the network must connect to Microsoft Update to get available update information. The administrator can determine, based on network security and configuration, how many other servers connect directly to Microsoft Update.

Step by Step SQL Server 2016 Two Node Failover Cluster

SQL Server 2016 delivers mission critical performance across all workloads with in-memory built-in, faster insights from any data with familiar tools, and a platform for hybrid cloud enabling organizations to easily build, deploy, and manage solutions that span on-premises and cloud. SQL Server 2016 is the biggest leap forward in the Microsoft data platform history with real-time operational analytics, rich visualizations on mobile devices, built-in advanced analytics, new advanced security technology, and new hybrid cloud scenarios.

Step by Step iSCSI Network Storage Windows Server 2016

This is a guide on how to create and Configure iSCSI windows server 2016. Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) is a way of connecting storage devices over a network using TCP/IP. It can be used over a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or the Internet. In this guide, we will create iSCSI in Windows Server 2016 as target and will connect the same storage from the network. In this way,

Step by Step Installation of Windows Server 2016 Domain Controller

Active Directory is one of the most widely used services on enterprise networks. In addition to providing basic authentication and authorization services, Active Directory enables so many other capabilities that its popularity is no surprise.

Windows Server 2016 adds some significant new features to both Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS). Many of the features added in Windows Server 2016 are geared toward the increased focus on cloud applications, whether they're public, private, or hybrid.

Step by Step MS SQL 17 Installation on CentOS Linux Release 7.4.

LAB Setup for SQL on Centos

Traditionally, Microsoft SQL Server, being part of Microsoft’s back office platform, has always run on Windows operating systems. However, Microsoft has made a commitment to enable customers to choose any platform. As part of this commitment, for SQL Server 2017, Microsoft has released SQL Server on Linux. This version of SQL Server will run and host databases on all common distributions of Linux, including Ubuntu, SUSE, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

I am going to build this lab on VMware Work station 14 with 4 GB of RAM and 4 Core Virtual CPUs.

VM Name	IP Address	RAM	V-CPU	HDD
ms-sql-17-01.mstechguru.ae	192.168.244.135	4 GB	4	100 GB

The same VM will be used later in a cluster. In this lab I will walk through the single instance installation of SQL Server. In this lab there is no part of Linux based installation as its standard installation method I have followed for the lab setup, but you can install your Linux box as per your requirements on a production network.

Pre-requisites

·       PuTTY

·       CentOS/RHEL Server

·       SQL Server 2017 CTP 2.1 and SQL Server 2017 RC1

·       SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 17.4

SQL Security

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a nonregulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce. In 2015, NIST reported that SQL Server had the lowest number of security vulnerabilities of all the major database systems.

New features and improvements introduced in Windows Server 2016

The following features and feature improvements were introduced in Windows Server 2016: 

·         Nano Server. Nano Server is a new installation option for Windows Server 2016. With no graphical or command prompt interface, it has a significantly lower hardware requirement than Server Core. Nano Server is the ideal platform for Hyper‑V, Hyper‑V cluster, and scale-out file servers and cloud service apps.

·         Windows Server containers and Hyper‑V containers. Containers enable you to isolate your apps from the operating system environment. This improves security and reliability. Windows containers are isolated from one another but run on the host operating system. Hyper‑V containers are further isolated, because they run within a virtual machine.

·         Docker. Docker is a technology for managing containers. Although Docker is usually associated with Linux, Windows Server 2016 provides support for Docker for managing Windows containers and Hyper‑V containers.

·         Rolling upgrades for Hyper‑V and storage clusters. These upgrades enable you to add Windows Server 2016 nodes to an existing Windows Server 2012 R2 failover cluster. The cluster continues to operate at a Windows Server 2012 R2 functional level until all the nodes are upgraded.

Selecting a suitable Windows Server 2016 edition

You can choose one of several editions of Windows Server 2016. These editions allow organizations to select a version of Windows Server 2016 that best meets their needs, rather than pay for features they do not require. When deploying a server for a specific role, system administrators can save substantially by selecting the appropriate edition. The following table describes the Windows Server 2016 editions.

Edition	Description
Windows Server 2016 Essentials edition	Windows Server 2016 Essentials edition is designed for small businesses. It corresponds to Windows Small Business Server from earlier versions of Windows Server. This edition allows up to 25 users and 50 devices. It supports two processor cores and up to 64 gigabytes (GB) of random access memory (RAM). It does not support many of the features of Windows Server 2016, including virtualization.
Windows Server 2016 Standard edition	Windows Server 2016 Standard edition is designed for physical server environments with little or no virtualization. It provides many of the roles and features available for the Windows Server 2016 operating system. This edition supports up to 64 sockets and up to 4 terabytes (TB) of RAM. It includes licenses for up to two virtual machines and supports Nano Server installation.  Note: You can run two virtual machines on one physical host, using one standard license, as long as the physical host is only used for hosting and managing the virtual machines. If the physical host is used to run other services, such as DNS, you can only run one virtual machine. For more information about Windows licensing, speak with a Microsoft licensing specialist.
Windows Server 2016 Datacenter edition	Windows Server 2016 Datacenter edition is designed for highly virtualized infrastructures, including private cloud and hybrid cloud environments. It provides all of the roles and features available for the Windows Server 2016 operating system. This edition supports up to 64 sockets, up to 640 processor cores, and up to 4 TB of RAM. It includes unlimited Windows Server-based virtual machine licenses for virtual machines that run on the same hardware. It also includes new features such as Storage Spaces Direct and Storage Replica, along with new Shielded Virtual Machines and features for software-defined datacenter scenarios.
Microsoft Hyper‑V Server 2016	Acts as a stand-alone virtualization server for virtual machines, including all the new features around virtualization in Windows Server 2016. The host operating system has no licensing cost, but virtual machines must be licensed separately. This edition supports up to 64 sockets and up to 4 TB of RAM. It supports domain joining. It does not support Windows Server 2016 roles other than limited file service features. This edition has no GUI but does have a UI that displays a menu of configuration tasks.
Windows Storage Server 2016 Workgroup edition	Acts as an entry-level unified storage appliance. This edition allows 50 users, one processor core, and 32 GB of RAM. It supports domain joining.
Windows Storage Server 2016 Standard edition	Supports up to 64 sockets but is licensed on a two-socket, incrementing basis. This edition supports up to 4 TB of RAM. It includes two virtual machine licenses. It supports domain joining. It supports some roles, including Domain Name System (DNS) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server roles, but does not support others, including Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS), or Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS).

Step by Step Installation of Windows Server 2012

1- Insert the Windows Server 2012 DVD, and once you get the following message press Enter to boot from the setup

2- Wait for a while till the setup loads all necessary files (Depending on your machine, it will take couple of minutes)

 3- Once the setup files are loaded, the setup will start with the following screen. You can change these to meet your needs (the default values should be fine for now)

Transfer of FSMO Roles

We can transfer the roles for some temporary maintenance issues on to ADC and again we can transfer back the roles onto DC.

We can transfer the roles in two ways

1. Command mode
2. Graphical mode

Transfer of roles through command:

On DC
Go to command prompt and type ntdsutil
Type: roles
Connections
Connect to server (name of ADC ex.sys2)
Q
Transfer schema master
Transfer RID master
Transfer infrastructure master
Transfer PDCQ
Q
Exit