MCSE - Microsoft Server 2012 Certification - Exam 70-414

Explore how system center 2012 unifies configuration manager, operations manager, and more for deployment and monitoring. Learn licensing: standard covers two VMs on two sockets, data center offers unlimited VMs.

Learn role based access control in System Center by defining security roles, scopes, and collections to grant end users and admins precise console access for VM and Configuration Manager.

Examine self-service portals in System Center, including Configuration Manager’s app catalog and Service Manager, for end users to request applications and manage virtual machines via a single pane of glass.

Connect service manager to orchestrator to publish and manage runbooks, granting the service account read, list contents, read properties, and execute rights, via a configured connector.

Implement and publish the System Center service manager service catalog by creating and publishing service offerings and request offerings for access and mapping run book automation templates to service requests.

Learn to use System Center App Controller as a self-service portal for managing private and public clouds with Virtual Machine Manager, deploying VMs and service templates to on-premises and Azure.

Explore private cloud solution accelerator and Windows Azure Pack on premises, detailing architecture, portals, and integration with orchestrator SMI and VMM to deliver IaaS and PaaS for a hybrid cloud.

Explore how System Center Operations Manager delivers end-to-end monitoring of apps, services, and infrastructure, including .NET and J2EE apps, via distributed applications and management packs.

Learn how to deploy Operations Manager agents and select management packs, perform domain-based discovery, manage agent and pack limits, and incrementally add packs to avoid alerts.

Create management pack overrides to tailor alerts, adjusting thresholds (e.g., memory 95 percent) and disabling roles for selected objects, then save to a dedicated override management pack for clear tracking.

Enable audit collection services to centrally gather security logs from Windows, Linux, and Unix machines via a dedicated collector and database, with agent forwarders sending events for forensic analysis.

Design and implement an operations manager gateway to streamline certificate authentication between the management server and remote agents, enabling Kerberos in remote domains and simplifying non-domain machine monitoring.

Configure operations manager alerts by setting up notification channels, subscribers, and subscriptions, and tailor alert delivery (email, instant messaging, text messages) with schedules and reporting options.

Connect operations manager to service manager to automate incident creation and synchronize alerts across systems. Configure management packs and connectors, define alert templates, and apply routing rules for targeted groups.

Explore patching strategies for Windows environments, from manual updates to centralized options like WSUS and System Center Configuration Manager, including Microsoft Update Catalog offline patches.

Explore how to design a Windows Server Update Services solution, configuring single or multi-server deployments, synchronization, approvals, product classifications, and high-availability with replica, autonomous, or cluster setups.

Implement and configure Windows Server Update Services by deploying WSUS, selecting internal database or SQL Server, defining update sources, proxy, product classifications, languages, synchronization, and group policy based client settings.

Learn how to automate patching of a Windows failover cluster with cluster-aware updating, choosing between orchestrated and self-updating modes, scheduling, readiness checks, and generating update reports.

Patch hyper-v hosts with System Center Virtual Machine Manager, patching only the host; the OS inside virtual machines requires Configuration Manager or WSUS, with baselines created and applied to servers.

Design and implement a patch strategy using System Center Configuration Manager. Coordinate software updates with Windows Server Update Services through software update points, groups, automatic deployment rules, and deployment packages.

Choose a patch strategy by weighing manual updates, Windows Update, group policy, and server options. Standardize Configuration Manager or SCVMM to patch desktops, servers, and hosts for automation and reporting.

Use Configuration Manager to patch online and offline virtual machines and templates, create and update virtual hard disks, schedule deployments, upload to VM manager, and inject patches and drivers.

Explore how System Center Virtual Machine Manager service templates model multi-tier services, deploy scalable instances with load balancing, and manage ongoing template updates across deployed service instances.

Design and implement service templates in System Center Virtual Machine Manager by creating two-tier or single-VM templates, applying OS, networks, applications, and scripts, and deploying via App Controller.

Copy the existing service template to a new version and rename it release 2.0, then edit for updated resources. Deploy the updated template to deployed instances by applying changes.

This lecture covers designing configuration management with System Center Configuration Manager, creating configuration items and baselines, applying them to machines, and enabling remediation and compliance monitoring.

Explore implementing System Center Configuration Manager by creating configuration items and baselines, applying compliance rules, and deploying to collections with remediation and ongoing status monitoring.

Explore how PowerShell v4 desired state configuration uses a declarative, idempotent design to define how configurations should look across nodes, monitor drift, and extend via DSC providers and Azure.

Explore implementing PowerShell v4 desired configuration management using DSC, including importing the X Web Administration resource, deploying a custom web site, and enforcing drift detection with the local configuration manager.

Explore how SCVMM uses hierarchical host groups to organize Hyper-V and ESX servers, apply dynamic optimization and placement rules, and delegate administration with scoped roles.

Create and configure clouds in System Center Virtual Machine Manager to expose compute, storage, and networks, then assign tenant roles and quotas to users.

Deploy and manage multiple library servers, configure object equivalencies across hosts, and optimize template and hard drive resources to improve deployment efficiency in a virtual environment.

Configure virtual machine profiles to standardize hardware, operating system, and applications; reuse application profiles, capability profiles, guest OS profiles, and physical computer profiles to streamline template creation and deployment.

Create and deploy Virtual Machine Manager templates by preparing generalized hard disks with sysprep and configuring hardware, OS, and profiles for rapid, reusable VM deployments.

Configure host group dynamic optimization and power optimization to balance virtual machines within a cluster using VM Manager 2012, set aggressiveness, thresholds, and auto or notified live migrations.

Understand how the operations manager performance resource optimization (pro) capabilities, available before CVM 2012, monitor cpu and memory and feed optimization hints to Virtual Machine Manager to move virtual machines.

Configure virtual machine placement rules using host groups and custom properties to enforce must match, should match, or must not match placement criteria for VMs, hosts, and clusters.

Understand how Hyper-V uses dynamic memory with ballooning and the small paging file to handle memory pressure and restart memory shortages.

Configure dynamic memory for virtual machines by setting startup RAM, minimum and maximum memory, and a 20 percent memory buffer to maintain available headroom.

Learn how RemoteFX enhances a VDI environment by virtualizing GPUs, using an enhanced codec for video, and enabling port-level redirection for a consistent experience across devices.

Learn to perform bare-metal deployment with SCVMM by provisioning physical servers as Hyper-V hosts, booting via a VHD, and configuring NICs and drivers, with troubleshooting guidance.

Explore the overview of virtualization migration types, including P2V and V2V, with offline and online methods for Hyper-V and ESX environments.

Explore SCVMM's P2V and V2V capabilities to convert ESX virtual machines to Hyper-V, including prerequisites, wizard steps, and post-conversion considerations.

Designing and implementing a VMware to Hyper-V migration uses the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter to move VMware VMs to Hyper-V or Azure via PowerShell or a graphical interface.

master large-scale migrations with the migration automation toolkit, a PowerShell layer atop the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter, enabling bulk conversions to Hyper-V with minimal downtime.

Configure Hyper-V live migration and storage migration with fast network bandwidth, QoS, and dedicated networks, selecting appropriate networks and settings for simultaneous migrations and optional compression or SMB Direct.

Enable protected network in a Hyper-V cluster to monitor connectivity and automatically live migrate virtual machines to a host with network access, keeping them connected.

Explore the System Center Virtual Machine Manager networking components, including logical networks, sites, subnets, uplink port profiles, virtual pool profiles, and logical switches, enabling private cloud and end user provisioning.

Design and implement logical networks, IP pools, and VM networks across sites; define DMZ, corporate, LAN, management, and backup networks, assign IPs, and map VM networks to subnets.

Design and implement pool profiles and pool classifications in Hyper-V, configuring virtual and uplink port profiles, offloads, security, bandwidth, and load balancing for host networks and switches.

Learn to create a logical switch by defining logical networks and sites, selecting and deploying virtual switch extensions, and mapping uplink port and virtual pool profiles to port classifications.

Deploy a logical switch on Hyper-V hosts by creating a new virtual switch, binding one or more adapters, optionally using NIC teaming, and observing automatic NIC creation and switch extensions.

Configure Hyper-V network virtualization on a logical network and enable new VM networks to use it, and define provider address space with an IP subnet and an IP pool.

Create virtual networks with Hyper‑V network virtualization, isolating networks and allowing overlapping IP spaces. Define subnets and IP pools, assign VMs to subnets, and enable external connectivity via gateways.

Discover how to connect virtual networks to external networks with the Hyper-V network virtualization gateway, including forwarding, NAT, and site-to-site VPN capabilities.

Explore the storage options usable by Hyper-V, including block-level storage, direct attached disks, SAN storage, and SMB 3 storage, with emphasis on cluster shared volumes for high availability.

Explore SMB 3 features introduced in Windows Server 2012, including scale-out file servers and cluster shared volumes. See how active-active configurations, transparent failover, and multiple paths boost enterprise workloads.

Design and implement an SMB 3.0 scale-out file server to share storage across a multi-node cluster, enabling resilient, multi-path access to storage for virtual machines and databases.

Explore iSCSI with Hyper-V to provide block-level, shared storage for VMs. Remember host backups will not capture iSCSI data.

Design and implement virtual fiber channel in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, creating adapters that connect to a fiber channel fabric with zoning and multi-path for resilient shared storage.

Compare VHD and VHDX formats, highlighting VHDX’s 64 TB max size, corruption protection, and alignment. Explain why VHDX offers dynamic expansion and improved performance on modern servers.

Configure shared vhdx storage for Hyper-V guest clusters on Windows Server 2012, enabling a disk shared among virtual machines via scsi and csv storage. Use PowerShell to attach the shared disk and verify persistent reservations.

Avoid pass-through storage for virtual machines; it breaks virtualization, blocks live migration and checkpoints, and disables replication. Use the newer dx format capabilities instead.

Learn how Windows Server 2012 storage quality of service controls virtual storage, with per-virtual hard disk max IOPS, minimum IOPS alerts, and resource metering for CPU, memory, and IOPS.

Explore failover clustering concepts that enable high availability by using two or more nodes with shared storage, allowing active and passive nodes to move services between hosts with no downtime.

Explore how Windows Server 2012 clustering uses quorum to ensure only one partition offers services by voting across nodes, with dynamic quorum and disk or file share witnesses.

Design multi-site geo clusters with multiple IPs and an or dependency filter. Use a file share witness in a third location and enable Hyper-V relaxed heartbeat to prevent outages.

Configure failover and failback options for cluster resources and workloads, including planned migrations and automatic draining of roles. Address unplanned scenarios, set preferred owners, and manage automatic anti-affinity failback timing.

Create highly available services in a failover cluster using Failover Cluster Manager, configuring roles, shared volumes, IP address, storage, networks, and virtual machines.

Explore how Hyper-V leverages failover clustering to treat virtual machines as cluster resources, enabling live migration between nodes, shared storage, automatic restarts on failure, and maintenance mode without downtime.

Deploy a two-node failover cluster on Windows Server 2012 by installing features, validating configuration, configuring shared storage, and creating the cluster with AD or DNS integration.

Explore cluster shared volumes that make NTFS disks available to all cluster nodes, with a coordinator handling metadata changes for seamless VM movement and CSP cache improvements.

Learn how clustered storage spaces turn a pool of disks—including SSDs and HDDs in an external enclosure—into shared virtual disks across multiple nodes, managed via cluster manager.