Master Windows & Linux: Ultimate Admin Bootcamp (2025)

Explore managing user accounts in active directory, including roaming profiles, account attributes, user profiles, templates, and handling inactive or disabled accounts to bolster enterprise security.

Create and manage user accounts to authenticate to the ads domain and access network resources. Apply naming conventions and unique logon names, including UPN suffixes.

Configure user account attributes in Active Directory using Administrative Center, ADs, PowerShell, and DS Mod, covering logon hours, logon to computers, expiration, password policies, and delegation.

Learn to manage user accounts in Active Directory Administrative Center by creating, deleting, and moving users, updating departments and group memberships within organizational units, and using scripts for population.

Create and manage roaming user profiles across multiple workstations by configuring profile paths, logon scripts, and home folders with group policy objects and folder redirection.

Learn how to modify Active Directory user properties with Windows PowerShell, including bulk updates, updating descriptions, and changing attributes across OUs.

Use Windows PowerShell to add a user to the same security groups as the administrator account by listing the administrator’s groups and adding James to each.

Enable and disable Active Directory accounts in bulk with Windows PowerShell, and move user objects between OUs using enable-adaccount, disable-adaccount, and move-adobject, feeding inputs with Get-ADUser and Get-Content.

Explain domain controllers and the global catalog in ad ds, including sign-in impact, gc placement in single versus multi-domain environments, and the role of dns and operations master.

Explore Windows Server 2016 group types, security and distribution, and how each enables permissions, email distribution, and ACL-based access; learn conversions and token implications in large Exchange deployments.

Learn to create and convert security and distribution groups in Active Directory, manage global scope, enable protection from accidental deletion, and inspect group properties with PowerShell.

Explore Windows server group scopes: local, domain local, global, and universal, and how they govern permissions and membership across domains and forests.

Explore group scopes in Active Directory, create and manage domain local and global groups, add members, and apply domain local groups to local resources on a Windows 11 client.

Use restricted groups in group policy to grant George local administrator rights on Windows 11 computers, then update policies with gpupdate /force and test disk management.

Learn about Windows Server 2016 default local groups, including administrators, domain admins, enterprise admins, and schema admins, and how protected groups govern Active Directory rights.

Demonstrates checking and managing user and group membership in Windows and Linux using Active Directory Administrative Center and PowerShell, including domain admins and commands like gpresult and get-adprincipalGroupMembership.

Create custom OUs to host computer objects and avoid using the default computers container, enabling delegated administration and precise group policy application.

Control permissions to create computer accounts in the correct OU and join computers to the RDS domain. Delegate control, pre-create accounts, and manage the machine account quota to limit creations.

Join or leave a domain by using the computer name tab in advanced system settings, entering the domain or workgroup name and credentials, then restart.

Explore managing computer objects in an Active Directory domain by creating and moving organizational units, delegating computer-management tasks, and joining client machines to the domain with PowerShell.

Reset the secure channel between a computer and its domain when authentication fails. Use methods like rejoining domain or resetting the computer account with DSMod, NetDom, NLTest, ADUC/ADAC, or PowerShell.

Learn how to perform an offline domain join. Use djoin to create and transfer the domain join file, enabling a computer to join a domain without online contact.

Learn to create and configure AD DS groups and user accounts for a new branch office, manage computer objects, and repair a trust relationship via test computer secure channel repair.

Demonstrates step-by-step management of AD DS objects, including creating groups and organizational units, nesting security groups, and configuring user accounts. Shows resetting computer accounts and repairing secure channels.

Plan the ou structure in Active Directory and learn how permissions govern ou use, then use the delegation of control wizard to simplify assigning permissions and delegating tasks.

Plan Active Directory functionality by aligning the OO structure to administrative purposes, delegation models, and GPOs, while acknowledging inheritance, change, and reflecting departments at a lower OO level.

Explore Active Directory administrative delegation by merging object-oriented design with OU security, and learn how tokens, seeds, and security descriptors govern permissions and auditing in AD.

Learn to delegate administrative rights in Active Directory, choosing between object type delegation and role-based delegation, using groups rather than individuals, and employing the Delegation of Control Wizard for tasks.

Learn how to add user and computer accounts to security groups in Active Directory using PowerShell, including single and multiple additions, batch input from files, and copying members between groups.

Manage Active Directory group memberships with PowerShell by adding computer accounts to security groups using Add-ADGroupMember and Get-ADComputer, appending the dollar suffix to names to group test and prod machines.

Learn PowerShell to manage, configure, and modify security group objects, nest groups with proper scope (universal, global, domain local), and create or add multiple groups in bulk.

Learn to use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to create, modify, display, and delete computer accounts and OUs, including managing trust relationships and protecting against accidental deletion.

Manage computer objects in Active Directory with PowerShell by enabling, disabling, and removing stale computers using Get-ADComputer, Enable-ADAccount, Disable-ADAccount, and Remove-ADComputer, with OU filters and last logon date.

Describe, deploy, and implement Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) in Windows Server 2016 to enable single sign-on across local, partner, and online applications and extend to external clients.

Explore how Active Directory domain and forest boundaries govern authentication, access, and searches. Understand replication, administration, group policy, auditing, and DNS boundaries across domains and forests.

Learn how to automate user provisioning, group management, self-service, and certificate handling in complex AD DS deployments with Microsoft Identity Manager 2016, enabling cloud-ready identities and Azure AD synchronization.

Learn to deploy a distributed AD DS environment with Windows Server 2008 as the minimum domain functional level and optimize DNS with conditional forwarders, suffix search order, and stop zones.

Upgrade Active Directory domain functional levels from Windows Server 2000 native through Windows Server 2016 to unlock features like universal groups, DNS partitions, fine-grained password policies, and Kerberos enhancements.

Explore new Active Directory functional levels in Windows Server 2025, including forest and domain levels, 32K database page feature, and unattended promotion using PowerShell and DC Promo.

Create a forest in AD DS to auto-create the forest root domain, forming the base with the schema master and domain naming master, and explore child and three-domain deployments.

DNS, centralized vs decentralized models, verify, monitor, cross-forest name resolution, conditional forwarders, stop zones, global name zone, Active Directory integrated DNS, UPN suffixes, federated authentication.

Install ads binaries on the Toronto Dc1 domain controller and configure Dc1 as an ads domain controller using the active directory domain services configuration wizard to add adatum.com to forest.

Upgrade Active Directory to Windows Server 2016 by either upgrading existing domain controllers or introducing 2016 domain controllers and decommissioning older ones, after upgrading the AD DS schema with adprep.

Learn to use the Active Directory Migration Tool (ADMT) to migrate user, group, and computer accounts across domains and forests, including pre-migration tasks, restructuring plans, and seed history management.

Master AD DS trusts and forest trusts by configuring name resolution between root domains, ensuring forest functional level Windows Server 2003 or later, and applying selective authentication to control access.

Explore AD DS trust types and their transitivity and direction, including parent and child, tree root, external, realm, forest complete or selective, and shortcut trusts.

Explain how trusts in an active directory forest enable cross-domain resource access, routing session tickets through domain controllers, and how shortcut trusts shorten the trust path for faster access.

Learn how forest trusts enable cross-forest access in Active Directory, including forest-wide and selective trusts, one-way and two-way configurations, transitivity, upn authentication, and Kerberos v5 across domains.

Master advanced AD DS trust settings by implementing seed filtering, selective authentication, and name suffix routing to control authenticated access and protect resources across external and forest trusts.

Explore how Active Directory data is partitioned to optimize replication across domain controllers in the forest, covering the configuration, schema, domain, and application partitions and their replication topology.

Explore the characteristics of AD DS replication, including multiple master replication, pool replication, store and forward replication, data store partitioning, attribute level replication, and collision detection.

Learn how Active Directory domain controllers replicate within a site, driven by connection objects and the knowledge consistency checker, with notifications, polling, and automatic two-way, three-hop topology.

Learn how replication topology is generated across forest-wide schema and configuration partitions, with cross-domain replication, global catalog considerations, and fault-tolerant, multi-partner domain controller replication.

Learn how Sysvol replication synchronizes the domain-wide policy wall across domain controllers, moving from file replication service to dfs replication, using remote differential compression and migration tools.

Implement ads sites to manage bandwidth and localize authentication, explain replication between sites, the site topology generator, and how clients locate domain controllers within sites and move controllers between sites.

Review how to create additional Active Directory sites to control authentication, replication, and service localization across slow links and locations with enough users to host domain controllers.

Explore how replication differs within and between sites, emphasizing site link bandwidth, compression, and scheduling, with change notifications and urgent or immediate replication to minimize inter-site latency.

Publish service records (srv) to map Kerberos v5 and LDAP to host names, enabling authentication and directory services with ports 389, 88, 464, and 3268 using tcp or udp.

Move domain controllers between sites using Active Directory sites and services, with domain administrator privileges, to relocate controllers, enable automatic site coverage, or create sites without controllers.

Explore universal group membership caching and how domain controllers cache user group data from a global catalog to speed remote sign-ins, with an eight-hour refresh and security risks.

Configure Active Directory sites, subnets, and domain controllers across Toronto and London HQ, set up site links and replication monitoring to optimize AD traffic.

Implement and configure Active Directory Domain Services on tor dc1, create and manage sites and subnets, set up site links and replication, and monitor replication across sites.

Explore group policy fundamentals and the GPO infrastructure, then implement and administer GPOs across sites, domains, and OUs with filtering, scope, processing, and troubleshooting guidance.

Discover how configuration management centralizes changes across multiple computers, using scope and application to achieve a consistent, desired state with group policy and Active Directory.

Explore how individual policy settings configure user or computer environments, including administrative templates and not configured states, and how the Group Policy Management Editor applies, enables, or disables those policies.

Explore computer and user configuration policies, including software settings, Windows settings, scripts, security settings, folder redirection, and administrative templates, plus policy updates and results verification.

Navigate the group policy management console to create and edit a GPO named disable control panel, link it to the domain, and verify updates with gpupdate and gpresult.

Explore the benefits of group policy for centralized administration, security, desktop standardization, and software deployment across users and computers, with folder redirection and network configuration options.

Define and manage group policy objects (GPOs) with the Gpmc, edit settings in the Group Policy Management Editor, and link GPOs to domain, OU, or site using PowerShell.

Explore domain based GPOs, including default domain policy and default domain controllers policy, their scope, and how local GPOs interact with domain policies.

Utilize starter GPUs in the Gpmc as templates to create domain GPUs with administrative templates settings, and export or import via cabinet or cap files for distribution.

Delegate administration of group policy within the master Windows & Linux bootcamp by backing up, restoring, importing, copying, and migrating GPOs with Gpmc and PowerShell.

Learn how to scope and link GPOs, control processing order and inheritance, use loopback processing, and apply security filtering and WMI filters to manage policy across computers and users.

Set the scope and precedence of GPOs using security filtering and link order. Learn how inheritance, blocking inheritance, and enforcement shape which policy settings finally apply.

Learn to filter GPO scope using security filtering, ACLs, and read and apply permissions to target authenticated users, specific groups, and exemption groups, with delegation considerations.

Learn how to enable or disable GPOs and GPO nodes using WMI filters, create WMI queries with WQL, and weigh performance implications before deployment.

Configure GPO status options to enable or disable computer and user settings during policy refresh, optimizing processing. Use Gpmc to force a policy refresh for emergency configurations.

Apply centralized control of user environments with group policy loopback processing to tailor user settings by computer, enabling standardized desktops in conference rooms, labs, kiosks, and virtual desktop infrastructure scenarios.

Group policy applies only selected settings on slow links detected by the client side extension, 500 kbps; disconnected computers retain policies, but startup and logon scripts may not run offline.

Implement a group policy infrastructure to lock screens after ten minutes, enforce a 600‑second screen saver with password protection, and use security filtering and loopback for conference room exemptions.

Master refreshing GPOs using gpupdate and invoke-gpupdate, configure computer and user refresh intervals, perform remote policy updates via gpmc, and troubleshoot health using event logs and replication status.

Explore how RSoP reports reveal policy application and learn to generate RSoP reports; grasp computer and user refresh intervals, sign-in behavior, and remote group policy updates via Gpmc.

Explore how to analyze and troubleshoot group policy with the group policy results wizard and GP results, modeling outcomes and reporting applied settings across users and computers.

Learn to implement standard desktop environments using group policy objects, administrative templates, folder redirection, software installation, and configure scripts, and master configuring group policy preferences to manage settings.

Explore how group policy settings are stored in dot adm and admx files, including language specific adml and idml files and the central store concept.

Create and maintain a central store for admx and adml files in a domain to standardize GPO templates and updates, enabling the Group Policy Management Editor to read them.

Explore folder redirection in group policy, selecting none, basic, advanced, or follow the documents folder, and configure per-user root paths to keep data private while noting sign-in impact.

Configure manual permissions on a shared folder to store redirected folders, and apply NTFS and share permissions for root, subfolders, and files as folder redirection creates or uses existing folders.

Apply group policy scripts to automate startup, shutdown, sign-in/out tasks, and environment setup using VBScript, batch, or PowerShell, stored on the Netlogon share.

Explore group policy preferences and extensions like drive maps, folder options, printers, and scheduled tasks, compare them with policy settings, and learn the create, delete, replace, and update actions.

Learn how to configure group policy preferences, including general tab actions (create, delete, replace, update), input details for drive mappings and environment variables, and item level targeting.

Explore item level targeting in group policy preferences, using 27 categories and/or logic to apply settings precisely to computers or users, with dynamic background refresh and real-world deployment scenarios.

Learn to manage user settings with group policy using administrative templates and preferences, implement drive mapping, shortcuts, folder redirection, and Office 2016 GPO design.

Explore practical group policy design to manage Office 2016 settings, drive mappings, a notepad desktop shortcut for IT security group, and folder redirection, using administrative templates and policy preferences.

Learn to use folder redirection to map different shared folders on separate servers for security groups, and apply GPOs with WMI filters, GPO permissions, and item-level targeting for portable computers.

Secure domain controllers, implement account security, and audit authentication in a Windows network. Learn the security risks, secure settings, physical access, and password replication policies for read-only domain controllers.

Identify your security boundaries and defend domain controllers by addressing network security, authentication attacks, elevation of privilege, denial of service, operating system and app attacks, and physical security risks.

Install and configure nmap on a test server, then perform scans to identify open ports, service versions, and operating system details on a domain controller, and assess vulnerabilities.

Configure domain controller security policies with group policy management, set password length to 14, increase log size, enable audit logon events, and verify with event viewer after gpupdate /force.

Configure a custom domain controller security policy gpo, including restricted groups for remote desktop users. Disable select services to harden security.

Implement secure authentication by hardening user accounts and passwords, securing elevated groups, auditing critical changes, and deploying two-factor authentication with smart cards or mobile MFA, and deprovisioning.

Deploy a read-only domain controller (RODC) using the Active Directory Domain Services Configuration Wizard or remote PowerShell. Plan a two-stage deployment with pre-staging, delegated promotion, and password replication policy.

Configure the password replication policy on read-only domain controllers to decide which users' credentials are cached. Use allowed and denied lists with precedence to manage domain-wide groups.

secure active directory by reducing the attack surface, enforcing least privilege, implementing secure administrative hosts, and monitoring for signs of attack with incident recovery planning.

Describe account security options in Windows Server 2016 and later, including password and lockout policies, Kerberos, protected groups, and fine-grained policies. Explain Windows Hello and Azure MFA integration.

Configure domain and local password policies via the group policy console, enforcing password history of 24, max age 42 days, min age 1 day, min length 7, and complexity.

Examine how account lockout policies set thresholds, durations, and unlock methods to prevent brute force attacks and protect user accounts.

Configure Kerberos policy settings from the default domain policy to govern domain, user, and computer accounts, including service ticket lifetimes, user ticket lifetimes, and clock synchronization tolerance.

Learn to enforce secure local group membership with restricted groups in group policy and to protect credentials using the Protected Users Security Group on Windows Server 2012 R2 or newer.

Explore fine grained password policies in Windows Server 2008+ that assign per-user or per-group password and lockout settings using password settings containers and shadow groups.

Configure fine grained password policies in Windows Server 2012 or newer using PowerShell or Active Directory Administrative Center, setting complexity, length, age, history, reversible encryption, and lockout rules.

Demonstrates configuring a fine-grained password policy in Active Directory Administrative Center, creating password settings for the Adatum managers group, and enforcing length 15, history 20, complexity, age, and lockout.

Learn to configure authentication audit policies with group policy management, enabling account logon and Kerberos auditing, and view event IDs 4771 and 4768 in Event Viewer.

Define the scope of audit policies with GPOs linked to the correct OUs to apply logon event auditing and account logon events across domain controllers.

Explore configuring managed service accounts and group MSAs, extending standard MSAs to multiple servers. Learn Kerberos delegation and SPNs for secure Windows Server 2016 service authentication.

Identify challenges with service accounts, including domain and local accounts, password management, and SPN administration, and explore managed service accounts in Windows Server 2016.

Master managed service accounts (MSAs) for automatic password and SPN management, their Active Directory integration, and key usage requirements across Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2016.

Extend managed service accounts with group MSAs to run across multiple servers, enabling automatic password maintenance and simplified SPN management within domain environments and server farms.

Demonstrates configuring group MSAs by creating a KDS root key in the London C1 domain, provisioning a sample app MSA, and setting the Data Sharing service logon in PowerShell.

Configure security policies for accounts and passwords, enforce restricted groups and auditing in Active Directory, and implement fine grained password settings for IT administrators and domain admins.

Deploy and configure Active Directory Domain Services, create domain controllers, implement password replication policy, manage groups, and install a managed service account for web services.

Plan your progress by exploring theoretical lectures, demonstrations, and labs, including hands-on labs and lab videos. Use section overviews and review questions to build practical, well-structured knowledge.

Compare enterprise and standalone CA deployments, using auto enrollment, certificate templates, and policy-based approval. Deploy multiple subordinate CA for segmentation, high availability, and geographic regions within Active Directory.

Learn how AD CS enables PKI in Windows Server to issue and manage certificates, secure data with encryption and signatures, and ensure availability with a CA hierarchy and enrollment services.

Explore designing a CA hierarchy for PKI, from root and subordinate CAs to policy keys and cross certification, including two-tier setups and when single or external CAs suffice.

This demonstration deploys an enterprise root CA with Active Directory Certificate Services. It covers configuring the enterprise CA and route CA option, 4096-bit keys, and private key creation.

Issue certificates to clients with a subordinate CA to enforce PKI policy securely. Use enterprise subordinate CA in ads environment with offline root CA for load balancing and fault tolerance.

Configure root or subordinate CAs with CA policy.inf file during AD CS installation. Define sections, keys, and values to set certification practice statement, CRL intervals, renewal settings, and AIA/CDP paths.

Learn to administer key hierarchy and keys, configure security options and auditing in ADCs, and tailor role-based administration and permissions to control certificate issuance and enrollment.

Learn how to move a root certificate authority to new hardware, preserving the key identity through backup and restore of private keys, CA certificate, certificate databases, and templates.

Explore certificate templates in a CA and Active Directory Domain Services environment, including versions, permissions, auto enrollment, and updating or superseding templates.

Explore how certificates bind identities with a private/public key pair, usage types, validity, and revocation lists, and configure certificate templates to tailor distribution and enrollment control.

Explore certificate template versions in Windows Server from version 1 to 3, including auto enrolment, customization, and CNG cryptography. Learn how compatibility, template duplication, and key protection influence deployment.

Explore configuring certificate template settings across versions, including security, default templates, single and multi-purpose certificates, and steps for duplication, format, key length, validity, CSP, and enrollment.

Modify an existing certificate template or merge multiple templates into one, so issued certificates reflect updates; supersede templates via the Certificate Templates console to switch users to the new template.

Learn to modify and enable a certificate template in the Certification Authority console, review IPsec, duplicate templates, adjust security for enroll and auto enroll, and issue Exchange User Test one.

Explore multiple certificate enrolment methods in Windows Server 2016, including auto enrolment for mass deployment and manual enrolment for certificates tied to specific security principles.

Discover how auto enrollment streamlines certificate issuance in an enterprise CA by using templates, read/enroll/auto enroll permissions, and domain group policy for computers and users.

Learn how certificate revocation works through CRLs and OCSP, including the revocation life cycle, crypto API phases, path validation, and configuring online responders.

Discover how to archive and recover private keys for EFS-encrypted data, and configure key archival with CRA, KRA, and data recovery agents.

Sign documents digitally with a private key in a PKI certificate to protect content and verify authorship. Verify with the public key, hash digest, and certificate trust, including CRL checks.

Demonstrates signing a Word document digitally using a user certificate enrolled via MMC and the certificate enrollment wizard, then encrypts the file with EFS and tests cross-user access.

Deploy a two-tier PKI on Windows Server 2016 with an offline root CA and an enterprise subordinate CA, configuring CDP and AIA, CRLs, and DNS/group policy trust.

Configure an offline root certificate authority by preparing the CA policy.inf file, setting the OID, installing a standalone root CA, and using 4096-bit keys with sha-256 for 10 years.

Configure root CA settings by adjusting CRL distribution point and AIA via GUI and PowerShell, set 12 hour overlap, ten-year validity, and verify URIs for certificate revocation lists.

Configure PKI infrastructure across subordinate CA Svr2 using PowerShell, install the Windows web server role and IIS management service, and add root certificates and DNS records.

Configure CRL distribution point and AIA on the subordinate CA by clearing, adding, and verifying points, then set CRL properties with certutil and verify via PowerShell.

Build a PKI lab on Windows Server Core VMs by provisioning VHDs and VMs, configuring a root CA offline, and setting up certificate services, CRL distribution points, and DNS.

Initialize new disks with MBR or GPT, convert between basic and dynamic disks, and manage system and boot volumes while noting BitLocker options during Windows installation.

ReFS is an NTFS-based file system that enhances metadata integrity with checksums, improves data resiliency, supports large volumes and storage pools, and remains backward compatible with NTFS features.

Learn to manage virtual hard disks using vhd and vhdx files in Windows Server, including creating, attaching, and booting from virtual disks with Hyper-V and PowerShell.

Explore dynamic disks and create simple, spanned, striped (raid 0), mirrored (raid 1), and raid5 volumes in Windows Server. Understand basic management via Server Manager and disk management.

Master the diskpart workflow to manage disks and volumes, including listing, selecting, deleting, cleaning, creating partitions, assigning letters, and extending volumes, while understanding limitations with dynamic disks and storage spaces.

Learn to configure local storage in Windows through practical labs: initialize disks, create ReFS and mirrored volumes, resize and shrink volumes, and manage VHD/VHDX with Hyper-V tasks.

Explore disk types for server and client storage, including IDE, SATA, SCSI, SAS, and SSD. Learn how IOPs, speed, reliability, and cost influence storage choices.

Explore storage planning for data centers, comparing direct attached storage, NAS, and SANs while evaluating Fibre Channel, iSCSI, and networked options to meet growing storage demands.

Compare DAS, NAS, and SAN storage topologies and their best-use scenarios, from high-performance transactional databases to branch offices, highlighting cost, scalability, and administrative overhead.

Block level storage and file level storage offer flexible storage options; large enterprises often use both, delivering volumes and LUNs to servers via iSCSI, Fibre Channel, or SMB/NFS.

Learn about iSCSI components—target server and initiator—and how to create iSCSI targets and virtual disks, enable authentication, and manage block storage with Server Manager and Windows PowerShell.

Explore storage components in detail, including network adapters, HBAs, converged network adapters, InfiniBand host channel adapters, and disk controllers, with notes on speeds, WWNs, and virtualization implications.

Demonstrate configuring an iSCSI target in server manager, creating a 1 GB iSCSI virtual disk, and attaching it to an initiator with IP 192.168.1.23.

Describe Isns as a central directory for iSCSI targets and Esns for discovering and managing iSCSI and Fibre Channel devices, and explain DCB with Mpi-io for path redundancy and performance.

Demonstrates configuring MPIO on Windows Server by installing the MPIO feature and enabling iSCSI device support. Shows discovering multi-paths and verifying devices under MPIO devices.

Describe the SMB file sharing protocol and its history from SMB 1.x to 3.1.1. Note SMB 3.x improvements, Windows server shared folders, NFS, Kerberos authentication concepts, and auditing SMB one.

Configure SMB shares on Windows Server with File Explorer, Server Manager, and Windows PowerShell, balance share and NTFS permissions, and use quick, advanced, or applications profiles via SMB share cmdlets.

Configure smb shares using Server Manager and Windows PowerShell, create a new volume on disk Z, enable access based enumeration, and verify shares with get smb share.

Configure an NFS share with server manager, enabling file and storage services and server for NFS, then create an NFS share with Kerberos v5 authentication and all machines permissions.

Learn to implement enterprise storage solutions using iSCSI, SMB, and NFS, deploy iSCSI across geographic locations, evaluate SQL database storage types, enable multipath I/O, and disable legacy SMB access.

Create a storage pool from a disk, set automatic allocation for a simple virtual disk with thin provisioning, and configure a volume in storage spaces via server manager.

Explore advances in file and storage services in Windows Server, including SMB over QUIC, encryption, NTLM blocking, Storage Migration Service, Storage Spaces Direct, Storage Replica, ReFS snapshots, and SMB compression.

Assess Storage Spaces to pool drives into reliable storage with mixed media and hot spares. Manage via MMC or PowerShell, enable VSS snapshots, and deploy Storage Spaces Direct with Hyper-V.

Compare storage spaces to san and nas, noting storage spaces offer an inexpensive, easy-to-manage way to attach disks with redundancy and tiering, while san and nas provide higher performance.

Explore how to manage storage spaces with Windows PowerShell by viewing storage pool properties, listing disks, and adding physical disks to storage pool one, then creating and inspecting virtual disks.

Monitor storage behavior to ensure reliability and performance, using event logs to diagnose storage spaces issues. Understand event IDs 100 and 102 related to configuration read failures and update problems.

Analyze event IDs, monitor storage pool capacity thresholds and drive health, and review metadata to map or unmap storage, trim space, and address io, drive, and configuration failures.

Monitor storage performance with Windows PowerShell and Performance Monitor, using the storage spaces performance analysis module, and measure spaces with a cmdlet to capture 60-second samples.

Learn to implement storage spaces by creating a storage pool from six disks, build a three-way mirrored virtual disk, enable storage tiering, and simulate drive failure with recovery steps.

Develop and apply storage tiering with Windows storage by creating a tiered storage pool from SSD and HDD, then provision a virtual disk using PowerShell and the Virtual Disk Wizard.

Create a tiered storage pool with PowerShell by selecting physical disks and creating a virtual disk. Set SSD or HDD media types, build storage tiers, and create a volume.

Plan and deploy data deduplication by evaluating candidate volumes and data types, install components, enable dedup on volumes, and schedule optimization, scrubbing, and garbage collection to achieve savings.

Identify data deduplication usage scenarios across user documents, software deployment shares, virtualization libraries, file shares, with savings from 30% to 95% and deployment candidates, boot-storm, VDI, BranchCache, and WAN optimization.

Install and enable data deduplication on Windows Server, verify dedup status, and measure virtual machine storage performance using PowerShell to maximize file server space.

Explore domain controllers and the global catalog, and learn how their placement affects sign-in times. Plan global catalog distribution in single and multiple domain environments and understand operations masters.

Explore new Hyper-V host features across Windows Server versions, including Hyper-V Manager for Server Core, shielded VM improvements, offline mode, PowerShell direct, and nested virtualization.

Explore Hyper-V storage options, including virtual hard disk formats VHD and VHDX, and types fixed, dynamically expanding, differencing, and passthrough, plus SMB three shares and Fibre Channel for high availability.

Master Windows Server Hyper-V networking with software-defined networking and QoS integration, VMQ and multi-queue enhancements, RDMA for virtual switches, and switch-embedded teaming with NAT virtual switch capabilities.

Configure Hyper-V networking with PowerShell to create an internal net switch, assign 192.168.10.0/24, connect virtual machines, and compare external and internal switches using Get-VMSwitch and Set-VMSwitch.

Explore virtual machine generation versions, compare generation one and generation two Hyper-V VMs, and learn about boot options, uefi support, and os compatibility for Windows Server 2016 and above.

Configure Hyper-V virtual machines with integration services, smart paging, resource metering, and discrete device assignment (PCIe, NVMe, GPUs) while noting secure boot support for Linux and FreeBSD.

Explore configuring Hyper-V virtual machines by checking and upgrading configuration versions, comparing generation one and two, and understanding host supported versions, imports, and upgrade benefits.

Master the basics of creating and managing Hyper-V virtual machines with PowerShell. Practice using New-VM, Get-VM, memory startup bytes, VHD creation and linking, generation settings, and start/stop operations.

Learn to manage Hyper-V virtual machines, including VM states, production checkpoints, and memory state handling. Export, import, create checkpoints, and use PowerShell direct for host-based VM management.

Demonstrates creating, renaming, applying, exporting, and deleting production and standard checkpoints in Hyper-V manager, using PowerShell direct to configure and manage virtual machines.

Discover how Docker packages apps into portable containers with a complete file system and shared kernel, using the Docker engine and open standards across Windows, Linux, and cloud.

Explore domain controllers, the global catalog, and DNS service records, and learn how global catalog placement affects sign-in times and planning in single-domain versus multi-domain environments.

Learn to design continuous availability strategies that keep data and services running through planned downtime, guided by business impact and risk analyses, with backups, failover, clustering, and disaster recovery planning.

Explore high availability and disaster recovery planning for Hyper-V virtual machines, including migration options, Hyper-V replica, failover clustering, and how to design and implement resilient Hyper-V environments.

Learn how Hyper-V live migration moves running virtual machines between hosts with minimal outage, using cluster or non-cluster setups, via a four-step process: setup, memory transfer, state transfer, and cleanup.

Enable and configure live migration on Hyper-V hosts, including incoming and outgoing migrations, network or IP options, and Kerberos authentication. Demonstrate migrating VMs and storage between hosts.

Learn to protect data with Windows Server Backup, performing full server, volume, file, and VM backups, and restoring via bare metal, system state, or Azure Site Recovery options.

Learn how Windows Server failover clustering delivers high availability by moving cluster resources between nodes, using quorum and witness components, and enabling failover and failback for continuous service.

Explore how failover clustering enables high availability, supports live migration, and minimizes downtime by coordinating nodes, shared storage, and networks.

Design and deploy highly available failover clusters on Windows Server. Learn storage, networking, and infrastructure best practices, configure shared storage, quorum settings, and cluster aware updating.

Identify highly available services for failover clustering, emphasizing stateful apps and Hyper-V VMs with IP-based failover and automatic client reconnect; plan capacity and uniform hardware to avoid single failure points.

Explore quorum modes and dynamic quorum in Windows failover clustering, including disk, file share, and Azure cloud witnesses. Learn how to configure these options for optimal availability across cluster nodes.

Configure and validate Windows failover clusters by installing the clustering feature, creating clusters, configuring roles and apps, managing nodes, and testing failover with the Validation Wizard and Test-Cluster cmdlets.

Validate and configure a Windows failover cluster using Failover Cluster Manager by adding two nodes and running the Validate Configuration wizard to test servers and storage, with potential warnings.

Install the failover clustering feature on all cluster members using Server Manager or PowerShell, create the cluster with selected nodes, install and configure the cluster role, and test failover.

Configure cluster quorum with the wizard or PowerShell to keep resources online during node changes, and support dynamic quorum management with typical, witness, or advanced options.

Monitor failover clusters, back up and restore configurations, and maintain health using Event Viewer, Performance and Reliability Monitor, tracer TSX, and the Validated Configuration Wizard.

Add a shared folder to a highly available file server, configure failover and failback, and validate the deployment; verify quorum and disk witness settings via Windows Admin Center.

Master Windows failover cluster backup and restore, ensuring quorum and witness disk replication, plus non-authoritative and authoritative restores. Learn validation and structured troubleshooting to identify and fix cluster issues efficiently.

Demonstrates configuring cluster aware updating (CAU) by adding roles, connecting to a failover cluster, generating update previews, applying updates, and enabling self-updating schedules.

Troubleshoot cluster availability by resynchronizing the CNO password and repairing CNO or VCO objects with Failover Cluster Manager, and manage quorum with Event ID 1177 checks.

Explore dynamic quorum and dynamic witness in site-aware stretched clusters, comparing Azure Cloud Witness, file share witness, and no witness options for resilient Windows Server storage.

Explore site aware failover clustering in Windows Server 2016, defining site locations, configuring site aware nodes, and using failover affinity and preferred side settings to optimize failover and heartbeat behavior.

Explore how network load balancing with Windows Server boosts scalability and high availability across multiple hosts. Learn to configure and manage NLB clusters with PowerShell.

Balance traffic across Windows Server 2016+ nodes with network load balancing, enabling scalable, high-availability services for stateless web tiers.

Explore deploying NLB by planning affinity and port rules and meeting infrastructure requirements, including static IP addresses and unicast or multicast adapters. Use DNS round robin for multi-site distribution.

Configure network load balancing clusters using port rules and affinity settings to distribute traffic, manage node priorities, and tune host parameters for high availability.

Design applications and storage support for NLB, ensure consistent node configuration, and plan securing, scaling, and upgrading clusters (VM, IIS shared config, CSVs, S3) to Windows Server 2016 or later.

Demonstrate implementing a two-node network load balancing cluster using IaaS and IIS, configuring a cluster IP and testing with simple pages on litfs two and litfs three.

Explore how to plan, create, and manage deployment images with MDT and Windows Deployment Services, compare file-based and sector-based imaging, and work with WIM and VHD formats.

Develop expertise in automating Windows deployments by building a task sequence, configuring MDT deployment shares, updating boot images, and integrating with Windows deployment services in a Hyper-V lab.

Configure and deploy a Windows 11 domain environment using a task sequence, DNS settings, and a domain controller, then validate deployment with MDT and WDS monitoring.

Understand Azure free subscription benefits, including 12 months of free services, 200 Azure credits for 30 days, and always free services, plus budgeting and cost control.

Learn to automate azure vm deployment with PowerShell scripts stored in a GitHub repository, clone and run them in Azure Cloud Shell, and manage resources from code using Codespaces.

leverages Azure Bastion to securely access Windows VMs via the browser without exposing public IPs, then configures static IP addresses and promotes a root domain controller for an AD forest.

Learn to display and configure the Linux system clock using date and hwclock, including UTC vs local time, format options, and root-level time adjustments.

Learn to locate and read Unix manual pages using man commands, section numbers to target descriptions, and helper formats like dash dash, dash h, and info for daily commands.

Explore file system security by examining access rights with ls -l, and use chmod to manage read, write, and execute rights for user, group, and others.

Learn to create and manage files and directories with mkdir, touch, and ls, then control access using chmod and recursive -R changes, plus umask and basic ownership commands.

Configure a secure Linux development environment by creating a shared dev share directory, a dev team group, and a new user, and apply 3770 permissions with setgid and sticky bits.

Open vim and create text one.txt, enter insert mode, and type some text. Return to command mode with escape, then save and quit with wq to finalize edits.

Master Windows and Linux students learn basic vim commands for navigation and editing, using h j k l for movement and operators like dw cw dd cc and u.

Master vim by opening files at a specific line number or pattern with vim plus <line> or plus /<pattern> and read-only mode with -R or view.

Explore switching between Vim windows by enabling the mouse with set mouse=a and using Ctrl w to navigate between panes, or rely on keyboard navigation for efficient multi-window work.

Master vim navigation by learning normal and insert modes, h j k l cursor moves, numeric multipliers, word and paragraph moves, search, and save or quit commands.

Master Vim basics: navigate with word and paragraph motions, search and clear highlights, copy and paste lines, delete and modify text, and use insert, append, and undo redo.

Practice vim navigation with hands-on exercises: create a file, insert and paste text, jump between paragraphs with curly braces, and navigate window and lines using 0, $, gg, and G.

Practice advanced vim navigation by searching for Python occurrences with / and moving with n and N. Edit efficiently using dw, D, x, and undo redo with U and Ctrl-R.

Master vim search and replace, copy, and insert operations to boost text editing efficiency, including global substitutions, line-range targeting, and confirmation prompts.

Learn Vim copy and insert operations using yank and paste, duplicate lines, undo and redo, and insert text from files or at line starts to boost editing efficiency.

Master vim editing from basics to advanced techniques, including file creation, navigation, text manipulation, visual mode, substitutions, windows and buffers, with practical exercises to boost speed and precision.

Practice vim text editing hands-on, including insert mode, paste and delete, undo, change words with cw, navigate with G and $, search with /, and use block visual mode.

Master vim editing techniques by practicing block moves, global edits, and multi-section rearrangements to organize scripting languages, web development, and system administration content.

Master Windows & Linux: ultimate admin bootcamp teaches practical Vim editing techniques, including deleting lines, substitutions, indentation, visual selection, yanking, and changing inside parentheses.

Learn to manage multiple files in vim on Waymo Linux by opening several files, navigating with :next and :previous, splitting windows, and saving changes with :wq.

Learn to search for words and phrases with grep, count lines and words with wc, and navigate content with pipes, using logrotate.conf and the word monthly.

Use pipes to connect command outputs, turning who into a sorted, faster list with who | sort, and count logged-in users with who | wc -l.

Explore how processes allocate system resources, manage lifecycles with PIDs, and use PS, PPS, and top tools to monitor daemons and real-time performance.