Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Certification (70-741)

Explore IPv4 and IPv6, addressing, traffic routing, subnets, gateways, interoperability between IPv4 and IPv6, including routing and gateway protocol, while linking the open systems interconnection seven-layer model to IP-based communication.

Explore how IPv4 addresses use dotted decimal notation, how MAC addresses provide physical addressing, and how ARP resolves IP to MAC on the local subnet.

Decode IP addresses into network and host parts using subnet masks and binary conversions. Explore gateway routing for local vs non-local subnets and slash notation such as /24.

Understand classful IPv4 addressing, including class a, b, c networks and subnet masks that define network and host portions, and how private ranges (10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16) and NAT are used.

Explain how IPv4 and IPv6 routing delivers packets through local networks via subnet masks and default gateways. Show how routers and traceroute reveal multi-hop paths to remote targets.

Explore special IPv4 address types, including host and network addresses, loopback and private ranges such as 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, and 192.168.0.0/16, plus unicast and multicast concepts for efficient deployment.

Configure IP routing by managing default gateways, static routes, metrics, and multiple network interfaces to direct traffic, using BGP, transit routing, and route reflectors to optimize reachability.

configure ip addresses on a network adapter via gui or command line, covering ipv4 and ipv6, dhcp automatic settings, and static configurations with a custom subnet, gateway, and dns.

Explore IPv4 and IPv6 troubleshooting tools, including ipconfig and PowerShell commands for IP addresses, DHCP lease management, ping, traceroute, and packet capture with Microsoft Message Analyzer.

Learn the fundamentals of IPv6, its 128-bit addresses and hex blocks, how it differs from IPv4, the subnet mask, zero compression, and NAT implications.

Understand IPv6 address types—global, link-local, and unique local—and how 64-bit interface IDs and global routing prefixes structure addresses. Learn router advertisements and DHCPv6, and why IPv6 favors multicast over broadcast.

Learn how IPv6 and IPv4 communicate in mixed networks using ISATAP, 6to4, and Teredo, including NAT scenarios and Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 configuration options.

Learn why IPv6 interface IDs are 64 bits, supporting mappings to a 48-bit Mac address or random generation to avoid tracking across global, local, and unique local addresses.

Explore the dynamic host configuration protocol (dhcp) basics, deployment options, high availability, and troubleshooting. Learn how dhcp auto assigns ip addresses via scopes, leases, renewals, and client-server exchanges.

Learn to deploy and manage Windows Server 2016 DHCP, including installation options, AD authorization, and configuring IPv4 and IPv6 scopes with options and high-availability.

Learn how to configure dhcp reservations so a chosen machine always receives the same ip from a scope, using its mac address or client id, via the dhcp server.

Enable dhcp high availability by splitting scopes or configuring failover between primary and secondary servers. Replicate scopes and leases to ensure uninterrupted ip address assignment during outages.

Configure DHCP options at server, scope, policy, and reservation levels, including class and vendor classes; learn the last-applied-wins order and how scope can override server while reservation can override policy.

Learn to manage DHCP in Windows Server 2016 by configuring authorized servers, scope options, DNS dynamic updates, backups, and import/export of leases, with failover configurations.

Explore how the domain name system provides hierarchical, human-friendly naming, with zones, delegation, dnssec, auditing, and caching that supports deploying dns and resolving names to ip addresses.

Learn how to install and configure DNS on Windows Server, create forward and reverse zones, manage primary, secondary, and stop zones, and enable secure dynamic updates with Active Directory integration.

Learn how dns zones replicate via Active Directory partitions, configuring domain, forest, or forest-wide replication; manage integrated dns zones using Active Directory partition management tools.

Learn to create and manage DNS records within a DNS zone, including host, reverse, alias (CNAME), MX, and service records used by Active Directory.

Learn to configure a global names DNS zone to resolve across multiple domains by enabling global name support, creating the zone, and replicating at the forest level.

Configure DNS using root hints and recursive lookups. Implement conditional forwarders, stop zones, and delegation for child zones.

Discover how dnssec protects dns zone records with signatures and trust anchors. Learn how public and private keys, zone signing keys, and the name resolution policy table enforce secure resolution.

Explore dns policies in Windows Server 2016 to tailor responses by client subnet and zone scope, enabling selective recursion and different records for Dallas and Houston clients.

Configure dns server properties to manage ipv4 and ipv6 interfaces, recursion, secondaries, round-robin, and security, then monitor with logging and automatic zone export via dns cmd.

Discover how IP address management with EPAM centralizes the management of all IP space across forests, integrates with group policy, and provides auditing, reporting, and scalable access control.

Install and configure IPAM on Windows Server 2016, linking a server database to an IPAM client, enabling provisioning, server discovery, and management of IP address blocks and inventory.

Explore role-based access control in IP address management (IPAM), create custom roles, and grant granular permissions to manage address spaces, scopes, reservations, DNS, and IP addresses.

Explore remote access technologies that enable secure access to corporate resources from outside the network, including web application proxy, virtual private networks, direct access, and radius authentication via https encapsulation.

Learn about web application proxy: publish internal services securely via reverse and forward proxy, enable AD FS driven pre-authentication and single sign-on, and deploy in a DMZ with policies.

Learn to deploy web application proxy, publish applications, and configure pre authentication or pass-through, with SSL termination and high availability via a network load balancer and sticky sessions.

Configure a Windows Server 2016 network policy server as a radius provider and proxy to manage authentication, authorization, and accounting for wireless, vpn, and internet access, including policy conditions.

Explore virtual private networking basics, including how VPNs provide IP connectivity across separate networks, compare tunneling protocols, encryption options, and certificate-based authentication methods like MS-CHAPv2 and EAP-TLS.

Install a vpn server using server manager or PowerShell, configure routing and remote access with the wizard, then set vpn options, ip address assignment, and ssl certificate binding.

Learn to configure the connection manager administration kit to package vpn client profiles, customize server and user details, set routing, proxy, actions, and deploy via policy, Intune, or manual install.

Learn about direct access, an always-on, two-tunnel solution that automatically connects enterprise devices to the corporate network, using IPv6, Kerberos, and certificate-based authentication for Windows Enterprise clients.

Learn to install direct access with the remote access management console, choose edge or behind-firewall topology, and configure server and client group policy objects.

Discover software defined networking in Windows Server 2016, including virtual networks that isolate IP spaces via encapsulation. Understand management, control, and data planes, plus provider and customer addresses enabling isolation.

Explain how software defined networking began in Windows Server 2012 and evolved in 2012 R2 with an inbox gateway to connect isolated virtual networks to the corporate network, via encapsulation.

Explore SDNv2 in Windows Server 2016, inspired by Azure, featuring a network controller, IP address mapping, and three core networks for management, provider, and transit.

Learn how Windows Server 2016 SD Invicta software load balancer uses a front-end IP, SLB Mux, and ECMP with BGP to distribute traffic to VMs, while the V switch rewrites responses.

Choose the VM express deployment to simplify and standardize SDN v2 setup, using templates to provision the network controller, software load balancer, and gateway, ensuring consistent results.

Define network security groups to control traffic in Windows Server 2016. Inspired by Azure NSG, apply five-tuple rules with priorities to protect virtual networks, subnets, and VMs.

Learn how nicknaming and switch embedded teaming boost resiliency and throughput, with receive side scaling, virtual machine queues, SMB Direct, and SMB Multi-Channel in Windows Server.

Explore switch embedded teaming in Windows Server 2016, a RDMA-friendly replacement for NIC teaming that supports eight identical adapters, switch-independent, SDN v2 compatible, managed by PowerShell or System Center.

Explore network acceleration technologies in Windows Server 2016, including virtual machine queues, receive side scaling, SR-IOV and virtual functions, and how these features reduce CPU overhead and latency.

Examine how SMB evolved into an enterprise-grade, highly available protocol in Windows Server 2016, with scale-out file servers, transparent failover, multi-channel, and SMB Direct for VMs and databases.

Explore how distributed file system and branch cache optimize access for remote offices by creating a DFS namespace with multiple targets, automatic site-based redirection, and replication.

Learn how distributed file system replication uses remote differential compression to replicate only changed bytes, handle closed files, and manage write conflicts across branch offices.

Deploy dfs-r to replicate data across servers using the dfs replication engine, manage replication groups, topology, and bandwidth, and monitor health with diagnostic reports and propagation tests.

Learn how branch cache and DFS optimize data access in branch offices through peer-to-peer and hosted cache models, sharing locally cached data and hash-based chunks with encrypted transfers.

Enable branch cache for file shares, publish hash values via group policy, and configure clients for distributed or hosted cache with latency and cache-size thresholds.

Explore networking technologies in Windows Server 2016 and practice configuring them with PowerShell, GUI, and command prompt in a lab, guided by the 70-741 exam blueprint.