Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Now that you are familiar with Domain Name System (DNS),
you need to verify that the computer you upgrade to a domain
controller (DC) meets the basic file system and network con-
nectivity requirements so that Active Directory runs smoothly and efficiently in your
organization.
Next, you'll explore the concept of
domain functional levels
, which essentially deter-
mine what sorts of domain controllers you can use in your environment. For instance, in
the Windows Server 2003 domain functional level, you can include Server 2012/2012 R2,
Server 2008 R2, Server 2008, and Server 2003 domain controllers, but the functionality of
the domain is severely limited.
Once you understand how to plan properly for your domain environment, you will learn
how to install Active Directory, which you will accomplish by promoting a Windows Server
2012 R2 computer to a domain controller. I will also discuss a feature in Windows Server
2012 R2 called a
read-only domain controller (RODC)
.
After you become familiar with the initial Active Directory installation, you will learn
how to install and configure Application Directory partitions. These partitions provide rep-
licable data repositories using the Active Directory paradigm, but they don't actually store
any security principals, such as users or groups. As the name implies, you use Application
Directory partitions primarily to store data generated by applications that need to be repli-
cated throughout your network environments independent of the rest of Active Directory.
The final section of this chapter deals with integrating DNS with Active Directory. You
learned about DNS in Chapter 2, “Configure Network Services,” but in this chapter I will
review how DNS implements with Active Directory.
For these exercises, I assume you are creating a Windows Server 2012 R2
machine in a test environment and not on a live network. If this Windows
Server 2012 R2 machine is being added into a Windows Server 2012 or
2008 R2 domain, you will need to prep the domain (explained in the section
“Adprep” later in this chapter).
Verifying the File system
When you're planning your Active Directory deployment, the file system that the operat-
ing system uses is an important concern for two reasons. First, the file system can provide
the ultimate level of security for all the information stored on the server itself. Second, it is
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