Implementing Network Infrastructure – 11/2/2009

Welcome to November!

If you remembered, two weeks ago, we discussed DNS — what it does and how it does it.  This week, we return to the concept of DNS and, perhaps more importantly, how to manage it in an organization.  We looked at a number of ways of keeping your thumb on DNS.

The first way we looked at was simply the Monitor tab of your DNS server properties dialog box.  The main use of this tab is to perform some queries against your DNS servers.  You can perform either recursive or iterative queries against your servers (remember those?)

The next tool we looked at was NSLOOKUP.  NSLOOKUP is a command line tool and uses reverse lookup zones (remember those?) to lookup your name servers, hence the name.  We discussed the various things you can do with NSLOOKUP, and instead of rehashing them here, check out this link to get more information.

The next tool we looked at was a powerful DNS tool called DNSLint.  This tool is available from the Windows Support Tools and is used to do some advanced DNS troubleshooting.  Depending in which options we use with the command, we can do various things.  For example, running dnslint /d boston.contoso.com will test the boston.contoso.com domain to ensure that it has proper DNS connectivity.  Again, TechNet has more information here.

Next up, we looked at the DNSCMD command, which can be used to directly manipulate the DNS database.  If, for example, I want to insert a Host (A) record pointing traffic aimed at mailserver.contoso.com to 10.1.5.1 I would type in this from the command prompt:

dnscmd dnsserver.contoso.com /recordadd mailserver A 10.1.5.1

The last thing we discussed was Replication Monitor, which is launched simply by issuing the replmon command from the command prompt.  This command allows us to ahem, monitor replication to discover any errors that might be happening.

Homework:

• Take Home Test #4 – download it here.
• Continue working on MS E-Learning Modules.

Information Processing/Word Core – 10/29/2009

All we did today was take the midterm exam.  Hopefully everyone got big, fat A’s on them!

Homework:

• Take the week off, see you next Thursday!

Microsoft Exchange – 10/28/2009

Just the midterm exam!  That’s it!

And I’m sure some inappropriate jokes were made today too.

Homework:

• Take the week off, even though I’m sure you don’t deserve it.
• Uh, you’re welcome!!!

CompTIA Network+ – 10/28/2009

Just the midterm exam today, hope you guys did well!

Homework:

• No homework this week, enjoy the time off!

ATTN Info Processing Students!

Since this is a very cool week for me, I’m going to do something very cool for you.

Here’s a study guide for the test tomorrow.

Enjoy!

CompTIA A+ Hardware/Software – 10/27/2009

All we did today was the midterm!  Hope you enjoyed it!  (HA!)

Homework:

• The least I could do after a test and a joke like that is give you the week off, so I am!

Implementing Active Directory – 10/26/2009

Just the midterm!

Homework:

• No homework this week!

Implementing Network Infrastructure – 10/26/2009

Nothing but the midterm exam today.  See you guys next week!

Homework:

• No Homework!

Information Processing/Word Core – 10/22/2009

Today we finished up the “computer literacy” portion of class by talking about how to evaluate computers and decide what would work best for you.  Chances are most, if not all, of you will be purchasing computers sometime in the next decade and figuring out which system will best suit your needs.

Next week, you will be having the midterm exam, covering the first four chapters of the book.  In all likelihood, I will not be here, but don’t sweat it — I’ll have someone here to administer the test.  After the test is finished, you’ll be free to go.  Make sure you study chapters 1-4!!

AND MAKE SURE YOU KNOW HOW TO CREATE/MOVE/COPY FOLDERS!!!

Homework:

• Chapter Four True/False
• Chapter Four Multiple Choice
• Study for the Midterm!  Chapters 1-4

Microsoft Exchange – 10/21/2009

Today we covered Chapters 5 and 6, dealing with Recipient Objects and Address Lists and Public Folders respectively.

Recipient objects are just fancy ways of saying people or things that can get mail.  These can include AD users, AD groups, outside contacts (think people who don’t work at your company), and public folders (next chapter).

After discussing the handling of recipient objects, we moved on to discussing the day-to-day activities of managing e-mail boxes (using the Exchange Tasks context menu item) and that discussion led us to group types and scopes.  Remember in previous classes talking about the two types of groups: security and distribution groups, and how we only use distribution groups to organize users for communication, but almost always, we’ll set up a security group?  Well, here we are in Exchange class, and now is the time we’ll be using Distribution groups.  Note that security groups can also be mail-enabled, so it’s still possible that you’ll never have a distribution group even if you’re using Exchange.  To wind things up for this chapter, we discussed recipient policies.

The next chapter covered Public Folders.  Public folders basically work like private, enterprise-wide (if you want them to  be) newsgroups.  Think of it as a bulletin board for your users to use for communication.  Honestly, Sharepoint or Google Wave could be more useful in some settings, but it’s here.  A great use of this would be for your HR department to have access to a folder where they can upload employee handbooks, employee policies, etc, for everyone to see on a Read Only basis.  To use public folders, you must have the NNTP service running.

A nice thing about Public Folders is that they can be configured to be accessible from a web browser.  We accomplish this by setting up a Virtual Directory for the folder and then IIS takes over and makes the information available on the web server that is hosting the directory.

You may have noticed that today’s content is a little deeper than what we had originally planned.  I will be out all of next week, and so to stay on track, we doubled up today.  Next week, there will be a midterm exam that will cover Chapters 01-06.  You of course will be allowed to use your textbooks for the exam.  After you finish the test next week, you’ll be free to go.  When I get back the week after, we’ll hit the  ground running for Chapter 7.

Homework:

• Take Home Test #04 – download it here.
• Continue work on MS E-Learning modules.
• Study for the midterm next week!