70-417 What to expect

As you may be aware, at the time of posting Microsoft have announced the upgrade paths from Windows 2008 MCITPs to Windows 2012, but have not yet announced the set of knowledge domains that will be tested on exam 70-417 (Upgrading Your Skills to MCSA Windows Server 2012) So what if you want to get a head start for studying for that exam - maybe even take it as one of the new (paid for) pre-release beta exams?

Well, what they HAVE released is the structure of course 20417A (which is in development for release next month) - including a module breakdown. They specifically state that this course DIRECTLY MAPS to exam 70-417. More details are here http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/course.aspx?id=20417a&locale=en-us

Taking the information from the module breakdown, my best guess is that the knowledge domains for 70-417 will be as follows:


Installing and Configuring Servers Based on Windows Server 2012
        -Install Windows Server 2012 Including Core
        -Configure Windows Server 2012 Including Core
        -Configure Remote Management for Windows Server 2012 Servers Including Core

Monitoring and Maintaining Windows Server 2012 Servers
        -Monitor Windows Server 2012
        -Implement a backup plan using Windows Server Backup
        -Implement a backup plan using Microsoft Online backup
        -Implement Server and Data Recovery

Managing Windows Server 2012 with Windows PowerShell 3.0
        -Understand and describe Windows PowerShell 3.0
        -Use PowerShell 3.0 to Manage AD DS
        -Manage Servers with PowerShell 3.0

Managing Storage for Windows Server 2012
        -Understand and utilize new storage features and functionality in Windows Server 2012 Storage
        -Configure iSCSI Storage
        -Configure Storage Spaces in Windows Server 2012
        -Configure BranchCache in Windows Server 2012

Implementing Network Services
        -Implement DHCP and DNS Enhancements
        -Implement IP Address Management (IPAM)
        -Give an overview of Network Access Protection (NAP)
        -Implement Network Access Protection (NAP)

Implementing DirectAccess
        -Understand and describe DirectAccess in Windows Server 2012
        -Implement and Configure DirectAccess

Implementing Failover Clustering
        -Understand and describe Failover Clustering
        -Implement a Failover Cluster
        -Configure Highly-Available Applications and Services on a Failover Cluster
        -Maintain a Failover Cluster
        -Implement a Multi-Site Failover Cluster

Implementing Hyper-V
        -Configure Hyper-V Servers
        -Configure Hyper-V Storage
        -Configure Hyper-V Networking
        -Configure Hyper-V Virtual Machines

Implementing Failover Clustering with Hyper-V
        -Give an overview of the Integration of Hyper-V with Failover Clustering
        -Implement Hyper-V Virtual Machines on Failover Clusters
        -Implement Hyper-V Virtual Machine Movement
        -Manage Hyper-V Virtual Environments by Using System Center Virtual Machine Manager(SCVMM) 2012

Implementing Dynamic Access Control
        -Understand and describe Dynamic Access Control core concepts
        -Plan for a Dynamic Access Control Implementation
        -Implement and Configure Dynamic Access Control

Implementing Active Directory Domain Services
        -Deploy AD DS Domain Controllers
        -Configure AD DS Domain Controllers
        -Implement Service Accounts
        -Implement Group Policy in AD DS
        -Maintain AD DS

Implementing AD FS
        -Understand and describe Active Directory Federation Services
        -Deploy Active Directory Federation Services
        -Implement AD FS for a Internal SSO in an organization
        -Deploy AD FS in a business to business Federation scenario


Enjoy :)

a little problem with DSquery & DSget

Just came across a knotty little issue with one of our domains, and it went something like this:

2nd line support engineer: Can you write me a script to give me a list of all the users whose accounts have expiry dates and whether those accounts are disabled or not

Me: no need. Just use

dsquery user -limit 0 | dsget user -samid -acctexpires -disabled

2nd line support engineer: that's only showing me users that don't have expiry dates - and i know for a fact that some of them do.

Me: (Assuming that the items wanted were simply being swamped by the vast number of accounts that didn't have an expiry date)

ok, then try this:

dsquery user -limit 0 | dsget user -samid -acctexpires -disabled | grep -v "never"

I supplied a copy of grep.exe from the gnu unix utils ports, as i couldn't make find work after two pipes for some reason
http://sourceforge.net/projects/unxutils/

2nd line support engineer: now i'm getting nothing at all

Me:
It's at this point I decide it's probably worth shadowing the engineer's TS session and having a look for myself what is going on

After deconstructing the pipe and using text files:

dsquery user -limit 0 > users.txt (Worked fine)
type users.txt | dsget user -samid (produced some results and then failed with the error:

dsget failed: Directory object not found.
type dsget /? for help.

followed by a PARTIAL list of user samid's (causing the error to scroll off-screen and making it difficult to find))

Looking at the last samid on the list, i searched for that user in users.txt - then looked at the next user in the list. Gotcha!!!!

The next user in the list had an apostrophe in his name! - very strange.... I'd have expected microsoft to sort that one out fairly quickly.

did a google - found http://www.rlmueller.net/CharactersEscaped.htm which (although suggesting that ' was a valid character) also suggested deconstructing the command using text files and manually editing the user DSNs. - not my favorite solution

With a little but of poking around in the help for the ds command, i found a couple of highly interesting switches

-uco output unicode
-uci input unicode
-uc both of the above

and so, with a few judicious switches on the initial syntax, the command ran through without errors:

Dsquery user –uc –limit 0 | dsget user –uci –samid –acctexpires –disabled | grep –v “never”

Problem solved.

Hope this can help someone else out there with a similar problem!