Active Directory. What is so hot about it?

[stilly]

I USED to think that I knew quite a bit about stuff, at least my friends and family think so, so getting a job as a pc specialist or what not should be a piece of cake right?

Now it seems that I have hit several walls here and there, the last one is POWER SHELL and ACTIVE DIRECTORY.

WTF?

There was no mention of active directory or PS in the orignal ad that I saw, but like 4 out of the 15 questions seemed to be focused on it at the interview.

HOW the hell can a guy get experience in MS Server and or Active Directory if he has not had any exposure to it? Besides some cool video dvds I found on MS Server 2008 (trainsignal or something) is there any easy way or quick e-book to read or SOMETHING to get like a crash cource in Active Directory?

Anyone? Hello? I am sick of these interviews being learning processes, I want one of them to become a JOB and maybe a career!

I just do not have thousands of dollars to throw at a school to learn this stuff so I gotta pick it up on the cheap.

[PolishMike]

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[Montu]

There's a bunch of active directory books you can get.

if a lot of the jobs your applying for want to make sure you understand AD...take the first test in the MCSA series:
Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring (70-640)

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-640#fbid=HgO-sm6W20s

*edit

what kind of jobs are you applying for?

[pdq_wizzard]

try this to start

http://microsoftgeek.com/?cat=42

[SeanCasey]

To help get some experience with it: Technet subscription plus a few of VM's setup to emulate a business environment.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

[the86d]

What's so hot about it?:
Integration with everything, it's mother, and a single point of failure managment. :|
It's better than wasint money on Macs, and having to run Windows VM's anyways...

Drawbacks:
Replication is random sometimes.
When something goes awry, pray it gets better very soon and the next time you check that same thing after lunch it will be working again... it might.

Experience:
You can get a Technet Plus subscription (I think it was called) that includes 5 Keys for all Software M$ drops, including Server...
The software included is for non-commercial (production) use, and cannot be officially sold again, ever.... and never expires (unless they changed something, but when I got it I got 10 keys for everything back then..).

[stilly]

There's a bunch of active directory books you can get.

if a lot of the jobs your applying for want to make sure you understand AD...take the first test in the MCSA series:
Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring (70-640)

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-640#fbid=HgO-sm6W20s

*edit

what kind of jobs are you applying for?

Well, I am aiming for school districts to get into their NIS, or cities and work as a computer/pc tech, then go up the chain, I really want to play with databases and I am very slowly piecing together thigns needed. How fast can one learn AD? do they have an AD in 24 hours book like other things out there? I am gonna check out the Trainsignal video dvds but I fear that without having the server setup that it might not sink in as fast. I learn more from doing rather then just watching.

Jeeze that is a lot at that link. Do they have waypoints?

[ke6guj]

set up a small domain with a couple DC's and a handful of clients. play around with it. IIRC, you can download 90-day trials of server 2008 and Windows 7 to run some stuff. but in the end, you have to use it to learn it. you can virtualize the computers so you don't have to buy new hardware.

As a PC tech, you may not need to know a lot about the servers and AD, but if you are being hired for a tech at a company that does use AD, you're going to have to know how to add computers to the domain and stuff like that.

[stilly]

What's so hot about it?:
Integration with everything, it's mother, and a single point of failure managment. :|
It's better than wasint money on Macs, and having to run Windows VM's anyways...

Drawbacks:
Replication is random sometimes.
When something goes awry, pray it gets better very soon and the next time you check that same thing after lunch it will be working again... it might.

Experience:
You can get a Technet Plus subscription (I think it was called) that includes 5 Keys for all Software M$ drops, including Server...
The software included is for non-commercial (production) use, and cannot be officially sold again, ever.... and never expires (unless they changed something, but when I got it I got 10 keys for everything back then..).

Single point of management? Wow, I thought that was what MS SQL was for.

Technet Plus subscription? I hope it is free... I will look into that.

[bigbearbear]

Active Directory is pretty simple really, I think IT geeks like to make it sound all complex and hoo-haa so that they can keep their job.

If you have TechNet subscription (you DO have it, or MSDN or both right?), you can use Windows Server 2003/2008/2008R2/2012 and setup a Domain Controller to try it out.

Or, just download their eval copy:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/hh670538.aspx?ocid=&wt.mc_id=TEC_108_1_33

And no, you don't need to go to school to learn this. All my engineers know how to use Active Directory (setup Domain controller, run multiple domains and manage it etc) after a day or 2 fooling around with it and asking me or other senior guys a few questions.

[stilly]

set up a small domain with a couple DC's and a handful of clients. play around with it. IIRC, you can download 90-day trials of server 2008 and Windows 7 to run some stuff. but in the end, you have to use it to learn it. you can virtualize the computers so you don't have to buy new hardware.

As a PC tech, you may not need to know a lot about the servers and AD, but if you are being hired for a tech at a company that does use AD, you're going to have to know how to add computers to the domain and stuff like that.

That was my plan of attack. I have now 4 Laptops that are functional in my arsenal as well as my g/f comp, my two systems, my multimedia machine and some little P3s that I found on the side of the road plus another one or two. I am gonna see if I can make a spare server with extra hardware and change my p2p network into a client/server network with a pdc and then play around with powershell unless there is a better way to do those things.

The last interview they killed me with a question like, how would you use automation to save yourself time in creating 12k accounts (for students) or something like that. I was like, uhhhhh. I can learn it if I get in with a place that has the hardware. If I could go to a city or netowrk somewhere and observe and ask questions for a few days I think that would do me a lot of good too, but nobody is gonna do that it seems. If it aint SQL killing me it is MAC or Linux administration or AD now... Seems as soon as I start to check out one path that I was deficient in another pops up and slaps me. Rather then spin my wheels in all directions I figure there must be a smarter approach to knock most if not all out so that I look much more attractive durring the interview. I am running low on Chlorophorm (sp) and my good looks aint cutting it anymore. :\ Downright frustrating.

BTW, I subscribed to the MS system builder for 1 year because I WAS trying to do the right thing and get people decent pricing on software, but that was about as far as I went. I was only doing it on the side while I was a code officer. I am checking out the technet links now. I REALLY want to learn SERVER because that is what a lot of people seem to ask about on the prelims.

I am grabbing the server 2012 now. I hope this was all that was needed for a tech-net subscription. I thought it was one of those things I had to pay for like $80 a year.

[ocabj]

Active Directory is Microsoft's adaptation of LDAP, but with a lot more thrown in.

I have to maintain both OpenLDAP and Active Directory user stores, specifically when it comes to Identity Management (users accounts, authentication, identity attributes).

While I have had formal training in AD, I didn't really learn much from the courses. My initial learning experience with AD was when I had to manage AD as a student working in IT at a University campus.

AD in general is not hard when it comes to just setting up a domain with users and computer objects. The real stuff is when you start getting into GPOs, and domain trusts (inter vs intra forest, transitive vs non-transitive, one-way vs two-way, etc), and actually integrating AD with a separate authoritative user store (assuming AD isn't authoritative for your organization, which is most likely won't be).

[ibanezfoo]

I'm a *nix guy though and through but active directory is pretty slick.

I've been doing this stuff professionally for 16+ years and one thing I've learned is that most of this computer stuff is the same. Linux, Mac, Windows, doesn't matter. Learn CONCEPTS as they are more or less universal. Once you have the concepts down solid its easy to adjust and apply to various platforms. Active directory is slick but now there are several variations. Novell/edirectory, etc...

Load up VMware and go to town. Focus on one concept at a time and apply it across several platforms (attach a Linux box and a MAc to an MS AD server for instance)

[stilly]

I have noticed that a lot of stuff I picked up in VB is logical across the board and used in scripts and queries.

I can not sit down and write a CSS/html/JS page but I can open them in notepad and look and have a vague understanding what I am reading and seeing and oddly enough, where an i-frame attack starts and ends... but I have not had formal training, I just had to get out there and do it one day.

Good to keep in mind. Is VMware free? This is the second time I have seen it mentioned.

Oh yeah, my friend gave me two macs too. One laptop and one desktop. Geeze my lectric bill is gonna go through the roof.

[ibanezfoo]

VMWare Player is free and will do a lot for you.

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/overview.html

It will get you the basics of the VM stuff. If you have a copy of 2008 Server you can run Hyper-V as it comes with Windows server. Not as much of a "standard" as VMware but still popular. For any jobs in IT it would serve you well to get some VM experience. VMware, Hyper-V, Xen... Again the concepts are the same even though the software seems a bit different. I worked with VMware for years before touching Hyper-V and it wasn't that big of a deal since I had the concepts of VM down pretty solid. I used Xen in its infancy but it wasn't viable for us at that time so it doesn't really count. Nowdays its pretty cool.