Fundamentals of Active Directory
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Fundamentals of Active Directory

About the Book

The Fundamentals of Active Directory—Hands-On Lab Guide is a comprehensive, lab-based learning resource crafted for IT professionals, systems administrators, students, and technical trainers seeking a deep, practical understanding of Active Directory. Published by MVPDays Publishing, this book strongly emphasizes guided, real-world exercises that teach not just the “how” but the “why” behind Active Directory’s core services.

This guide is ideal for those preparing for certification, working in enterprise environments, or simply looking to master foundational AD concepts with a practical edge.

Learning by Doing: A Fully Immersive Lab Experience

Rather than presenting theory in isolation, this book walks learners through a structured lab environment, enabling them to confidently deploy, manage, secure, and migrate an Active Directory infrastructure. From the initial installation of domain controllers to advanced domain migrations and hardening techniques, every chapter builds directly on hands-on tasks that reinforce core concepts.

Book Structure & Key Content Areas Getting Started

The book begins with steps to access the lab environment, including the deployment of virtual machines and initial network configuration. This sets the stage for all subsequent exercises.

Lab 1 – Active Directory Design 101

Before implementing, learners are guided through the design process: understanding business and technical requirements, choosing the right topology, and planning a secure and scalable AD deployment.

Lab 2 – Installing Active Directory

This chapter covers the step-by-step installation of two domain controllers (TMDC01 and TMDC02). It includes a comparative exercise on Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) versus ADSI Edit—helping readers understand the tools available for directory management at different levels of abstraction.

Lab 3 – Logical Structure & Core Concepts

In this core section, learners explore:

  • User creation and security principals
  • Understanding SIDs, ACEs, ACLs, and DACLs
  • Default security groups and their purposes
  • Group scope and nesting
  • Structuring Organizational Units (OUs) for delegation and policy targeting
  • The AD schema and its role in extensibility
  • Configuration of Active Directory Sites and Services

Each topic is reinforced with detailed instructor-led exercises.

Lab 4 – Group Policy

A critical skill for any AD administrator, this lab teaches:

  • Creating and applying GPOs
  • Locking down environments (e.g., RDS servers)
  • Managing inheritance, enforcement, and loopback processing
  • Understanding SYSVOL replication and troubleshooting
Lab 5 – Backup and Recovery (Optional)

For those interested in disaster recovery, this lab walks through:

  • Performing authoritative and non-authoritative restores
  • Using the Active Directory Recycle Bin
  • Practical considerations for AD backup strategies
Lab 6 – Hardening Windows Servers

Security is front and center as learners apply Microsoft’s Security Compliance Toolkit to harden Windows Server 2019/2022 and client systems (Windows 10/11) via Group Policy Security Baselines.

Lab 7 – Advanced Migration to Server 2022 (Optional)

This capstone lab series takes learners through the complete process of upgrading an AD environment:

  • Verifying replication health
  • Extending the schema with ADPREP
  • Installing and promoting new Server 2022 domain controllers
  • Transferring FSMO roles
  • Demoting legacy DCs
  • Configuring time services (NTP)
  • Updating domain and forest functional levels

The lab simulates a complete production migration scenario with IP reassignment, time synchronization via Group Policy, and post-migration validation steps.

Knowledge Check & Review Sections

Review questions support each major topic and answer keys, making this book perfect for self-study or classroom environments. Question sets include:

  • Active Directory architecture
  • Group types and permissions
  • Backup and recovery techniques
  • Security hardening concepts
  • Migration and upgrade best practices
Who Should Read This Book

This guide is a must-have for:

  • New and intermediate IT professionals learning Active Directory
  • Microsoft certification candidates
  • Systems engineers responsible for managing identity and access
  • Educators and trainers looking for structured, real-world lab content
  • Security professionals focused on hardening and compliance
Conclusion

The Fundamentals of Active Directory – Hands-On Lab Guide equips readers with the skills and hands-on experience to confidently design, deploy, manage, secure, and migrate Active Directory environments. Rich in practical exercises and grounded in real-world application, this book ensures learners walk away with the knowledge and the muscle memory to succeed in today’s hybrid and cloud-connected IT landscape.

About the Authors

Dave Kawula
Dave Kawula

Dave is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) with over 20 years of experience in the IT industry. His background includes data communications networks within multi-server environments, and he has led architecture teams for virtualization, System Center, Exchange, Active Directory, and Internet gateways. Very active within the Microsoft technical and consulting teams, Dave has provided deep-dive technical knowledge and subject matter expertise on various System Center and operating system topics.

Dave is well-known in the community as an evangelist for Microsoft, 1E, and Veeam technologies. Locating Dave is easy as he speaks at several conferences and sessions each year, including TechEd, Ignite, MVP Days Community Roadshow, and VeeamOn. 

Recently Dave has been honored to take on the role of Conference Co-Chair of TechMentor with fellow MVP Sami Laiho.  The lineup of speakers and attendees that have been to this conference over the past 20 years is really amazing. Come down to Redmond or Orlando in 2018 and you can meet him in person.

As the founder and Managing Principal Consultant at TriCon Elite Consulting, Dave is a leading technology expert for both local customers and large international enterprises, providing optimal guidance and methodologies to achieve and maintain an efficient infrastructure.

BLOG: www.checkyourlogs.net

Twitter: @DaveKawula

Emile Cabot
Emile Cabot

Émile is a six-time Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) who started in the industry during the mid-90s working at an ISP and designing web sites for celebrities. He has a strong background specializing in datacenter and deployment solutions, and has spent many years performing infrastructure analyses and solution implementations for organizations around the world.

Émile organizes the Calgary Microsoft User Group, blogs on CheckYourLogs.net, and has presented at several conferences, including Ignite, VeeamOn, TechMentor, TechReady, and MVPDays. 

Cary Sun
Cary Sun

Cary Sun has a wealth of knowledge and expertise in data center and deployment solutions. As a Principal Consultant, he likely works closely with clients to help them design, implement, and manage their data center infrastructure and deployment strategies.

With his background in data center solutions, Cary Sun may have experience in server and storage virtualization, network design and optimization, backup and disaster recovery planning, and security and compliance management. He holds CISCO CERTIFIED INTERNETWORK EXPERT (CCIE No.4531) from 1999. Cary is also a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), Microsoft Azure MVP, Veeam Vanguard and Cisco Champion. He is a published author with several titles, including blogs on Checkyourlogs.net, and the author of many books.

Cary is a very active blogger at checkyourlogs.net and is permanently available online for questions from the community. His passion for technology is contagious, improving everyone around him at what they do.

Blog site: https://www.checkyourlogs.net

Web site: https://carysun.com

Blog site: https://gooddealmart.com

Twitter: @SifuSun

in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sifusun/

Amazon Author: https://Amazon.com/author/carysun

John O'Neill Sr.
John O'Neill Sr.

John’s professional IT career began as a teenager, taking him on many wonderful adventures over the past 30 years. John’s IT path started with programming, but branched out quickly. Opportunities from the Help Desk to the Corner Office shape his IT journey. Specializing in Systems and Infrastructure technologies, John’s broad skillset includes Desktop and Server OS, Identity Management, Networking Services, Network Architecture, IP Telephony, and Security.

Passionate about giving back to the IT community, John develops relevant, timely content IT Pros take advantage of immediately. Part of the MVPDays team, he develops both online and in-print content. In addition, John authored material as a contributing editor for the Petri.co.il online community as well as senior contributor to Tom’s IT Pro, Redmond Magazine, Netwrix, and both Thomson-Reuters' Aspatore Books and Exec Blueprints publications.

Helping others succeed and advance in IT drives John to share knowledge. Speaking at conferences worldwide, developing technology training courses for Pluralsight’s online training library, and leading webinars are all regular investments by John in the current and next generation of IT professionals.

John is proud to be honored by industry organizations, leaders, and peers. John is a four-time recipient of Microsoft’s MVP Award. John received NEOSA’s CIO of the Year Award in 2012.

Cristal Kawula
Cristal Kawula

Cristal Kawula is the co-founder of MVPDays Community Roadshow and #MVPHour live Twitter Chat.   She is the President of TriCon Elite Consulting where she manages the day to day operations of the field consulting and sales teams.

Cristal is also only the 2nd Woman in the world to receive the prestigious Veeam Vanguard Community excellence award.  In July of 2017 she was awarded the designation of Microsoft MVP.  

Early in her career Cristal worked as a consultant with Microsoft authoring content for internal SMSGR and GTR teams.   This content was used to train internal support engineers and global escalation engineering teams.  

Cristal can be found speaking at Microsoft Ignite, MVPDays, and other local user groups.   She is extremely active in the community and has recently helped publish a book for other Women MVP’s called Voices from the Data Platform.  

 

BLOG: http://www.checkyourlogs.net

Twitter: @supercristal1

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