Pass Your Microsoft MCSE 70-413 Exam Easy!

Microsoft 70-413 (MCSE Designing and Implementing a Server Infrastructure) exam dumps vce, practice test questions, study guide & video training course to study and pass quickly and easily. Microsoft 70-413 MCSE Designing and Implementing a Server Infrastructure exam dumps & practice test questions and answers. You need avanset vce exam simulator in order to study the Microsoft MCSE 70-413 certification exam dumps & Microsoft MCSE 70-413 practice test questions in vce format.

An Introduction to the 70-413 Exam and Core Infrastructure Planning

The Microsoft 70-413 Exam, titled "Designing and Implementing a Server Infrastructure," represents a significant step up from the MCSA level, targeting experienced IT professionals who are responsible for the high-level design and planning of a Windows Server 2012 environment. This exam is one of the core requirements for the prestigious MCSE: Core Infrastructure certification. Unlike its MCSA-level predecessors that focus on implementation details, the 70-413 Exam is centered on architectural decision-making. It challenges candidates to think like a solution architect, evaluating business requirements and translating them into robust, scalable, and secure technical designs.

The exam focuses on the ability to plan and design a comprehensive server infrastructure. This includes planning for server deployment and virtualization, designing advanced network services like DHCP and DNS, and architecting a complex Active Directory infrastructure. The format of the 70-413 Exam often includes case studies, where you are presented with a detailed description of a company's existing environment and future goals. You must then answer a series of questions based on this scenario, making design choices that meet the specified requirements while adhering to best practices.

While the 70-413 Exam is based on Windows Server 2012 and has since been retired, the design principles it teaches are foundational and timeless. The skills of planning an IP address management strategy, designing a virtualization host infrastructure, or architecting a multi-site Active Directory topology are fundamental to any server infrastructure, whether on-premises or in a hybrid cloud environment. Studying for this exam builds a strong architectural mindset that is highly valuable for any senior systems administrator or infrastructure architect.

This five-part series will provide a detailed guide to the key domains covered in the 70-413 Exam. We will explore the critical design considerations for each technology area, from automated server deployment and virtualization to advanced network and Active Directory services. This will provide you with the structured knowledge needed to understand the "why" behind the technology, which is the key to success on this design-focused exam.

Designing an Automated Server Installation Strategy

A key responsibility for a server infrastructure architect is to design an efficient and repeatable process for deploying new servers. The 70-413 Exam requires you to move beyond manual installations and design an automated deployment strategy. The foundational tool for this in Windows Server 2012 is Windows Deployment Services (WDS). WDS is a server role that allows for the network-based deployment of Windows operating systems. The design process involves planning for the creation and management of boot and install images.

A core component of an automated strategy is the use of answer files. An answer file, typically named unattend.xml, is an XML file that contains all the settings that you would normally enter manually during the Windows setup process. This includes the product key, time zone, network settings, and instructions for disk partitioning. By associating an answer file with an image in WDS, you can achieve a "zero-touch" installation, where the server is deployed from bare metal to a fully configured state without any manual intervention.

For more complex and flexible deployment scenarios, an architect might design a solution using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT). MDT is a free solution accelerator that provides a unified set of tools, processes, and guidance for automating server and desktop deployments. It integrates with WDS and allows for a much more dynamic deployment process. For example, with MDT, you can create a single master image and then use a task sequence to dynamically install the correct drivers, applications, and updates based on the hardware model or the server's intended role.

The design considerations for an automated installation strategy, a key topic for the 70-413 Exam, involve choosing the right tool for the job. For a simple environment with only a few server roles, a WDS-only solution might be sufficient. For a large, diverse enterprise, a more powerful solution based on MDT or System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) would be a more appropriate design choice to ensure consistency, reduce deployment time, and minimize administrative effort.

Planning and Implementing a Server Upgrade and Migration Strategy

Another critical design task covered on the 70-413 Exam is the planning of a server upgrade and migration strategy. As technology evolves, organizations must have a plan to move their services and roles from older operating systems to newer ones. An architect must be able to evaluate the business and technical requirements to decide between an in-place upgrade and a migration.

An in-place upgrade involves running the setup for the new operating system directly on the existing server. This process preserves the server's existing data, settings, and roles. While it may seem simpler, it carries a higher risk. If the upgrade fails, you may be left with an unusable server. In-place upgrades are also not always supported, depending on the server roles installed and the specific upgrade path.

A migration, on the other hand, involves building a brand new server with the new operating system and then moving the roles, features, and data from the old server to the new one. This is often called a "clean install" or "side-by-side" migration. While it requires a new piece of hardware (or a new virtual machine) and is a more involved process, it is generally considered the safer and recommended approach. It results in a clean, stable operating system and provides an easy rollback path, as the old server remains untouched during the process.

To facilitate migrations, Windows Server 2012 includes the Windows Server Migration Tools. This is a set of PowerShell cmdlets that allow you to export the configuration of specific roles from a source server and then import that configuration onto a new destination server. The 70-413 Exam will expect you to be able to design a migration plan, which includes identifying the roles to be migrated, using tools like the Migration Tools, and planning for the testing and cutover process.

Virtualization Strategy with Hyper-V

Virtualization is a cornerstone of modern server infrastructure, and designing a robust virtualization platform with Hyper-V is a major domain of the 70-413 Exam. The design process begins with planning for the Hyper-V hosts themselves. This involves careful capacity planning and sizing to ensure that the physical servers have enough resources to support the intended virtual machine workloads.

Host sizing involves four key resource areas: CPU, memory, storage, and networking. For CPU, you must consider the number of physical cores and the processor speed, and plan for the virtual-to-physical CPU ratio. For memory, you need to calculate the total amount of RAM required for all the planned VMs, plus an overhead for the host operating system itself. Features like Dynamic Memory, which allows memory to be allocated to VMs on demand, can help to improve memory utilization and VM density.

Storage planning for Hyper-V hosts is critical. You must design a storage solution that can provide the required capacity and performance (IOPS) for your virtual machine disks. This could involve using local storage, a dedicated Storage Area Network (SAN), or a file-based solution using SMB 3.0. Network planning involves designing a resilient and high-performance network infrastructure for the hosts, often using multiple network adapters teamed together to provide bandwidth and redundancy for management, live migration, and VM traffic.

A key design goal is to plan for VM density, which is the number of virtual machines that can be run on a single physical host. The goal is to maximize density to improve hardware utilization and reduce costs, but without compromising the performance of the virtual machines. The 70-413 Exam will test your ability to make these critical design decisions to create a stable and scalable Hyper-V environment.

Planning and Implementing Virtual Machine Deployment

Once the Hyper-V host infrastructure is designed, an architect must plan for the efficient deployment and management of the virtual machines themselves. This is another key topic for the 70-413 Exam. The design process starts with the virtual hard disks (VHDs). In Windows Server 2012, the newer VHDX format is preferred, as it supports larger disk sizes (up to 64 TB) and is more resilient to corruption.

An important design decision is the choice between fixed-size, dynamically expanding, and differencing disks. Fixed-size disks allocate all their space on the physical storage upfront, which provides the best performance. Dynamically expanding disks start small and grow as data is added, which is more space-efficient. Differencing disks are linked to a parent disk and only store the changes made to that parent, which is very useful for creating labs or VDI environments but is not typically recommended for production servers due to performance considerations.

To streamline the deployment of new VMs, a design should include the use of virtual machine templates. An administrator can create a "golden image" VM, install the operating system, apply all the latest patches, and install common software. This VM can then be used as a template. When a new VM is needed, you can simply create a copy of the template, which is much faster than building a new VM from scratch.

This process can be further enhanced by creating a library of standard virtual hard disks and hardware configuration profiles. By combining these pre-configured components, an administrator can rapidly and consistently provision new virtual machines to meet the demands of the business. The ability to design a structured and efficient VM deployment strategy is a key skill for any virtualization administrator.

Designing a Virtualization Administration Solution

While individual Hyper-V hosts can be managed with the Hyper-V Manager console, this approach does not scale for a large enterprise environment. The 70-413 Exam requires you to be able to design a centralized administration solution for your virtualization infrastructure. The premier tool for this in the Microsoft ecosystem is System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM).

VMM provides a single management console for administering your entire virtualization fabric. This includes your Hyper-V hosts, your storage arrays, and your virtual networking. From the VMM console, you can perform all the lifecycle management tasks for your hosts and VMs across your entire data center. It allows you to group your Hyper-V hosts into host groups and clusters and manage them as a single pool of resources.

One of the most powerful features of VMM is its library. The VMM library is a central repository for all the building blocks needed to create and deploy virtual machines. This includes VHD files, ISO images, scripts, and VM templates. By using the VMM library, you can ensure that all new VMs are deployed from a standardized and approved set of components. VMM can deploy a new VM from a template in a matter of minutes.

VMM also provides advanced capabilities like intelligent placement, which helps you decide the best host to deploy a new VM on based on resource utilization. It also provides performance and resource optimization (PRO) capabilities that can dynamically rebalance the workloads in your clusters to optimize performance. For any organization with more than a handful of Hyper-V hosts, designing a management solution based on VMM is a critical step, and a key topic for the 70-413 Exam.

Planning and Implementing Infrastructure Monitoring

A comprehensive server infrastructure design must include a strategy for monitoring the health and performance of all its components. The 70-413 Exam will test your ability to plan for a robust monitoring solution. Proactive monitoring is essential for identifying potential issues before they become critical failures and for ensuring that the infrastructure is meeting its service level agreements (SLAs).

Windows Server 2012 comes with a set of built-in tools that can be used for basic monitoring. The Performance Monitor is a powerful tool for capturing and analyzing real-time and historical performance data for hundreds of different system metrics, known as performance counters. The Event Viewer provides a centralized log of all the important application, security, and system events that occur on a server. An administrator can create custom views and subscriptions to filter and consolidate these events.

While these built-in tools are useful for troubleshooting individual servers, they are not a scalable solution for monitoring an entire enterprise. For a comprehensive, centralized monitoring strategy, the Microsoft solution is System Center Operations Manager (SCOM). SCOM is an enterprise-class monitoring platform that provides end-to-end monitoring for your entire infrastructure, including hardware, operating systems, and applications.

SCOM works by using management packs, which are pre-defined sets of rules, monitors, and reports for a specific technology, such as Windows Server, Active Directory, or SQL Server. These management packs contain the expert knowledge needed to monitor the health of that technology. When SCOM detects a problem, it can generate an alert, send a notification, and even be configured to run an automated recovery task. Designing a monitoring strategy based on SCOM is a key architectural skill.

Advanced DHCP Design and Implementation

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a fundamental network service that automates the assignment of IP addresses. While basic DHCP setup is an MCSA-level topic, the 70-413 Exam requires you to design a highly available and secure enterprise DHCP infrastructure. The most significant feature for DHCP high availability in Windows Server 2012 is the introduction of DHCP Failover.

DHCP Failover allows two DHCP servers to replicate scope information between them, ensuring that if one server goes down, the other can continue to service client requests without interruption. When designing a DHCP Failover solution, you must choose between two modes: Hot Standby and Load Balance. In Hot Standby mode, one server is active, and the other is a passive standby that only takes over if the active server fails. In Load Balance mode, both servers are active and share the load of servicing client requests, which is the more common and recommended configuration.

Another design consideration is the use of a split-scope configuration. This is an older method for providing DHCP availability where you split the addresses in a scope between two servers. For example, 80% of the addresses are on the primary server, and 20% are on the secondary. This provides some redundancy but is more complex to manage than the new DHCP Failover feature. The 70-413 Exam will expect you to be able to compare these two approaches.

For security, a DHCP design should include measures to control which clients are allowed to receive an IP address. This can be done using MAC address filtering (allow or deny lists). A more advanced security design would involve integrating DHCP with Network Access Protection (NAP). This allows the DHCP server to only grant full network access to clients that meet a pre-defined health policy, a concept we will explore later.

Advanced DNS Design and Implementation

The Domain Name System (DNS) is another critical network service that is absolutely essential for Active Directory to function. The 70-413 Exam will test your ability to design a secure, resilient, and efficient DNS infrastructure. The design process begins with planning the DNS namespace. This involves deciding on the internal Active Directory domain name and how it will be integrated with your public DNS namespace.

For high availability and fault tolerance, it is a best practice to use Active Directory-integrated DNS zones. When a zone is stored in Active Directory, the zone data is replicated automatically to all domain controllers in the domain or forest. This means that every domain controller that is also a DNS server holds a writable copy of the zone, eliminating any single point of failure. This is a far superior design to using standard primary and secondary zones.

Security is a major design consideration for DNS. The 70-413 Exam expects you to understand how to secure your DNS infrastructure. This includes configuring secure dynamic updates, which ensures that only authenticated clients are allowed to update their own records in the DNS zone. For the highest level of security, you should design a solution that uses DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC). DNSSEC uses digital signatures to protect against DNS spoofing and cache poisoning attacks by ensuring that the DNS data is authentic and has not been tampered with.

In a multi-site environment, your DNS design must account for the physical network topology. You need to plan the placement of DNS servers in different sites to provide for local name resolution and to optimize replication traffic. You should also configure DNS forwarders and conditional forwarders to control how the DNS servers resolve names for external domains or for other internal domains in a multi-forest environment.

Designing and Implementing IP Address Management (IPAM)

A new and important feature introduced in Windows Server 2012, and a key topic for the 70-413 Exam, is IP Address Management (IPAM). IPAM provides a centralized framework for discovering, monitoring, auditing, and managing the IP address space on a corporate network. In large environments, managing IP addresses and tracking their usage can be a major challenge, often relying on spreadsheets. IPAM is designed to replace these manual methods with an automated, integrated solution.

The IPAM architecture consists of an IPAM server and IPAM clients. The IPAM server is a Windows Server 2012 machine with the IPAM feature installed. This server is responsible for collecting data from the managed DHCP and DNS servers in your network. The IPAM clients are the tools, such as the Server Manager console or PowerShell, that an administrator uses to connect to the IPAM server to view and manage the IP address space.

When designing an IPAM deployment, you need to plan for the placement of the IPAM server and the method it will use to discover the infrastructure servers. IPAM can discover domain controllers, DHCP servers, and DNS servers automatically by querying Active Directory. After discovery, you must explicitly choose which of these servers you want to manage with IPAM.

IPAM provides a rich set of features. It gives you a consolidated view of all your DHCP scopes and DNS zones. You can monitor the utilization of your IP address blocks and receive alerts when they are running low. It also provides a detailed audit trail of all IP address leases and a history of who has used a particular IP address at a given time, which can be invaluable for security investigations. The ability to design a solution that leverages IPAM is a key skill for a modern Windows infrastructure architect.

Designing a VPN and DirectAccess Solution

Providing secure remote access for mobile workers is a common requirement for any enterprise. The 70-413 Exam requires you to be able to design a remote access solution using the tools available in Windows Server 2012. This involves understanding and comparing two main technologies: traditional Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and the more modern DirectAccess.

VPNs create a secure, encrypted tunnel over the public internet, allowing a remote user to connect to the corporate network as if they were physically in the office. Windows Server 2012 supports several VPN protocols, with Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) being a popular choice as it uses TCP port 443 and is able to traverse most firewalls. A VPN connection is user-initiated; the user must manually start the connection when they need access.

DirectAccess is a more advanced and seamless remote access solution. A DirectAccess connection is established automatically in the background whenever the client computer has an internet connection. The user does not need to do anything to start the connection. This "always-on" connectivity makes accessing corporate resources much more transparent for the user and allows IT to manage the remote computer even when the user is not logged on.

Designing a DirectAccess solution is more complex than designing a VPN. It has specific infrastructure requirements. You need a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to issue certificates to the clients and servers. You need specific DNS entries to be available both internally and externally. You also need a server called the Network Location Server (NLS), which is a highly available internal web server that DirectAccess clients use to determine if they are inside or outside the corporate network.

Designing a Network Protection Solution (NPS)

The Network Policy Server (NPS) is the Microsoft implementation of a RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) server and proxy. It is the central component for providing network access authentication, authorization, and accounting. The 70-413 Exam will test your ability to design a solution that uses NPS to secure your network access, particularly for remote access clients.

When a user tries to connect to the network via a VPN or a wireless access point, that access device (the RADIUS client) will forward the user's connection request to the NPS server (the RADIUS server). The NPS server is responsible for authenticating the user's credentials, typically against Active Directory.

After the user is authenticated, the NPS server must authorize the connection. This is done by processing a set of configured network policies. A network policy is a set of conditions and settings that determine whether a connection should be allowed or denied. For example, a policy might have conditions that check the user's group membership and the time of day. If the conditions are met, the policy can apply settings that grant the user access and specify connection parameters, like an idle timeout.

For a highly available design, you can deploy multiple NPS servers. You would then configure your VPN servers and wireless access points to use one NPS server as their primary RADIUS server and another as a secondary. This ensures that network access requests can still be processed even if one of the NPS servers is unavailable. Designing a clear and logical set of network policies is key to implementing a secure and manageable network access solution.

Implementing Network Access Protection (NAP)

Network Access Protection (NAP) is a policy enforcement platform built into Windows Server that allows you to control access to network resources based on a client computer's health. The 70-413 Exam requires a deep understanding of the NAP architecture and how to design a solution that uses it. The goal of NAP is to ensure that only compliant computers, those that meet your corporate security policies, are allowed full access to the network.

The NAP architecture consists of several key components. The NAP client is the software that runs on the end-user's computer. The NPS server acts as the NAP health policy server, which is where you define your health policies. A System Health Validator (SHV) is a component on the NPS server that checks a specific aspect of a client's health. For example, the Windows Security Health Validator can check if the client's firewall is enabled and if its antivirus software is up to date.

When a NAP-enabled client tries to connect to the network, it sends a Statement of Health (SoH) to the NPS server. The NPS server uses its configured SHVs to validate the SoH against the health policy. If the client is compliant, it is granted full access. If the client is non-compliant, it is placed on a restricted network.

On this restricted network, the client is only given access to a set of remediation servers. These are servers, such as Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) or an antivirus signature server, that the client can use to fix its health problems. Once the client has been remediated and is compliant, it can re-attempt the connection and will be granted full access. NAP can be enforced at several points, including DHCP, VPN, and IPsec.

Designing a Multi-Site Network Topology

For any enterprise with more than one physical location, designing the Active Directory site topology is a critical task for ensuring efficient authentication and replication. The 70-413 Exam will expect you to be able to design this topology based on the physical network layout. An Active Directory site is a representation of a part of your physical network that has fast and reliable connectivity, typically a local area network (LAN).

The first step in the design is to create a site for each of your physical locations that has a domain controller. You then need to associate the correct IP subnets with each of these sites. This is a crucial step. When a client computer logs on, it uses this site and subnet information to find the closest domain controller to authenticate against. This prevents a client in one city from trying to log on to a domain controller in another city over a slow WAN link.

Next, you must design the connections between the sites by creating site links. A site link represents the physical WAN connection between two or more sites. On the site link, you configure a cost and a replication schedule. The cost is a relative number that represents the speed of the link; lower cost links are preferred. The schedule determines how often replication is allowed to occur over the link. For example, you might allow replication to occur every 15 minutes over a fast link but only once an hour over a slow, expensive link.

For complex networks, you may need to configure site link bridging. By default, all site links are transitive. If site A is linked to site B, and site B is linked to site C, Active Directory assumes that a domain controller in site A can replicate with one in site C. If this is not true of your physical network, you can disable this transitivity and create explicit site link bridges to define the exact replication paths.

Designing a Forest and Domain Infrastructure

The design of the Active Directory forest and domain structure is one of the most critical and foundational decisions in a Windows Server infrastructure project. The 70-413 Exam places a strong emphasis on your ability to make these high-level architectural decisions. The forest is the security boundary of an Active Directory implementation, and all domains within a single forest share a common schema, configuration partition, and global catalog.

A key design decision is whether to use a single forest or a multi-forest model. The single forest model is the recommended and most common approach. It is simpler to manage and provides seamless resource access across all domains within the forest. A multi-forest design is typically only chosen when there are strict requirements for security or political autonomy between different parts of the organization, or during a merger or acquisition scenario where two existing forests need to coexist.

Within a forest, you must design the domain structure. A single domain model is the simplest and is sufficient for many organizations. It provides a single point of administration and a unified security policy. A multi-domain model might be chosen for several reasons. You might create separate domains to isolate administration, to meet different password policy requirements for different user groups, or to optimize replication traffic over a very slow global network. However, creating more domains adds complexity.

Another important design consideration is the forest and domain functional levels. The functional level determines which advanced Active Directory features are available. When designing a new infrastructure, it is a best practice to set the functional levels to the highest version of Windows Server that you are deploying (e.g., Windows Server 2012). This ensures that all the latest features are available. The 70-413 Exam will test your ability to weigh these factors and design the appropriate AD structure.

Designing a Trust Relationship Strategy

When an organization has multiple Active Directory forests, or when it needs to collaborate with a partner organization, a trust relationship is required to allow users in one forest to access resources in another. The 70-413 Exam requires you to be able to design a trust strategy, which involves choosing the correct type of trust for a given business scenario.

By default, all domains within a single forest automatically trust each other through two-way, transitive parent-child and tree-root trusts. For connecting two separate forests, the primary tool is a forest trust. A forest trust can be one-way or two-way and can be configured to be transitive. A two-way, transitive forest trust allows all users in both forests to be authenticated and to access resources in either forest, subject to permissions. This is the most common type of trust used in a merger or acquisition.

For situations where you only need to provide access between two specific domains in different forests, you can use an external trust. An external trust is non-transitive. It only connects the two domains that it is created between. For example, if you create an external trust between Domain A in Forest 1 and Domain B in Forest 2, users in Domain A cannot access resources in any other domain in Forest 2.

There are other, more specialized types of trusts as well. A realm trust can be used to create a trust with a non-Windows, Kerberos-compliant directory service, such as a Unix MIT Kerberos realm. A shortcut trust is an optimization that can be used to shorten the trust path between two domains that are far apart in a complex forest. The ability to analyze a business requirement and select the appropriate trust type is a key architectural skill.

Designing an Active Directory Replication Topology

The physical design of your Active Directory infrastructure is just as important as the logical design. The 70-413 Exam will test your ability to design the AD replication topology to ensure efficient and reliable synchronization of directory data. This design is based on the concept of Active Directory sites, which we discussed in the previous part. A well-designed site topology is the key to controlling replication traffic and ensuring fast user logons.

The first step is to plan the placement of your domain controllers. As a general rule, you should place at least one domain controller (and preferably two for redundancy) in each physical site that has a significant number of users or servers. This ensures that users can authenticate locally without having to traverse a slow WAN link to a domain controller in another site.

The replication traffic between domain controllers within the same site is uncompressed and occurs very frequently. The replication traffic between different sites, however, occurs over site links. The Knowledge Consistency Checker (KCC) is a built-in process that automatically generates the replication topology between the domain controllers in your network based on your site and site link configuration. In most cases, it is a best practice to let the KCC manage the replication connections automatically.

However, in some complex network topologies, you may need to manually create replication connections to override the KCC. You also need to plan for the placement of your Global Catalog (GC) servers. The Global Catalog contains a partial replica of all the objects in the entire forest and is required for user logons and for searching for objects. You should place a Global Catalog server in every site that has users.

Designing a Group Policy Strategy

Group Policy is the primary mechanism for managing the configuration of users and computers in an Active Directory environment. The 70-413 Exam requires you to be able to design a clear and efficient Group Policy strategy. A good design makes the environment more secure, more consistent, and easier to manage. The design process begins with creating a logical Organizational Unit (OU) structure.

OUs are the primary containers to which you link Group Policy Objects (GPOs). Therefore, you should design your OU structure to facilitate the application of Group Policy. For example, you might create separate OUs for servers and workstations, or for different departments, so that you can apply different sets of policies to each. A well-designed OU structure is the foundation of an effective GPO strategy.

When designing your GPOs, it is a best practice to create monolithic GPOs that control a single function. For example, instead of having one massive GPO that configures hundreds of different settings, it is better to have separate GPOs for security settings, application deployment, and desktop settings. This makes the policies easier to manage and troubleshoot.

You also need to have a strategy for controlling the application of your GPOs. GPOs are inherited down the OU tree. You can block this inheritance or enforce a GPO to prevent it from being overridden. You can also use filtering to control which users or computers a GPO applies to. The two main filtering methods are security group filtering, which applies a GPO only to members of a specific group, and WMI filtering, which uses a query to apply a GPO based on the hardware or software characteristics of a computer.

Designing a Domain Controller Strategy

Planning for the placement, configuration, and protection of your domain controllers (DCs) is a critical infrastructure design task. The 70-413 Exam will test your knowledge of the best practices for this. As a rule, every physical site should have at least two domain controllers for redundancy. You also need to plan for the operations master roles, also known as FSMO (Flexible Single Master Operation) roles.

There are five FSMO roles in an Active Directory forest. Two are forest-wide roles (Schema Master and Domain Naming Master), and three are per-domain roles (PDC Emulator, RID Master, and Infrastructure Master). When designing a new forest, it is a best practice to place all five roles on the first domain controller. In a larger environment, you may want to separate these roles onto different DCs to distribute the load and provide redundancy.

For branch offices, which often have lower physical security and less reliable network links, a standard writable domain controller may not be the best choice. For these locations, you should design a solution that uses a Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC). An RODC holds a read-only copy of the Active Directory database. It can service authentication requests for users in the branch office, but no changes can be made to the directory on the RODC itself.

An RODC also provides a feature called credential caching. By default, an RODC does not store any user passwords. You can create a password replication policy that explicitly allows the RODC to cache the passwords for the users in the branch office. This allows those users to still log on even if the WAN link to a writable DC is down. Designing a secure and efficient branch office DC strategy using RODCs is a key skill.

Upgrading and Migrating Active Directory

The 70-413 Exam includes objectives related to the design of an Active Directory upgrade or migration project. This involves planning the process of moving from an older version of Active Directory, such as Windows Server 2003 or 2008, to Windows Server 2012. As with server roles, you have two main options: an in-place upgrade or a migration.

An in-place upgrade involves upgrading the operating system of your existing domain controllers one by one. This is done by running the adprep command-line tool to prepare the forest and domain schemas for the new version, and then performing an in-place OS upgrade on each DC. While this may seem simpler, it is generally not the recommended approach as it carries a higher risk.

The recommended and safer method is a migration. This involves introducing new Windows Server 2012 domain controllers into your existing Active Directory environment. You would build new servers, promote them to be domain controllers in your existing domain, and then transfer the FSMO roles to these new servers. Once all the roles and services have been moved, you can then demote and decommission the old domain controllers. This approach results in a clean environment and provides a simple rollback path.

In more complex scenarios, such as a merger or acquisition, you may need to perform an inter-forest migration. This involves migrating users, groups, and computers from a source forest to a target forest. This is a very complex project that requires specialized tools like the Active Directory Migration Tool (ADMT). An architect needs to be able to design a phased migration plan for these complex scenarios.

Designing an Organizational Unit (OU) Structure

The design of the Organizational Unit (OU) structure is one of the most important aspects of the Active Directory logical design. The 70-413 Exam requires a deep understanding of the principles behind a good OU design. OUs are containers within a domain that are used to organize directory objects like users, groups, and computers. Unlike domains, OUs do not represent security boundaries; their primary purpose is administrative.

There are two main reasons to create an OU structure. The first and most important reason is to facilitate the application of Group Policy Objects (GPOs). Since GPOs are linked to sites, domains, and OUs, a well-designed OU hierarchy allows you to apply different policies to different sets of users and computers in a granular and organized way. For example, you might have separate OUs for servers and workstations to apply different security policies to each.

The second reason to create OUs is to delegate administrative control. You can grant specific users or groups the permission to manage the objects within a particular OU without making them domain administrators. For example, you could grant the help desk team the permission to reset passwords for all the user accounts in the "Sales Users" OU. This allows you to implement the principle of least privilege and create a tiered administrative model.

There are several common models for OU design. A geographical model organizes OUs by physical location. A business unit model organizes them by department, such as Sales, Finance, and IT. An object-based model creates top-level OUs for Users, Groups, and Computers. In many cases, a hybrid model that combines these approaches is the most effective. The 70-413 Exam will expect you to be able to design an OU structure that meets both the GPO and delegation requirements of a given business scenario.

Designing a Group Strategy

Active Directory groups are the fundamental tool for managing access to resources. A well-designed group strategy is essential for a manageable and secure environment, and it is a core topic on the 70-413 Exam. There are two types of groups: security groups and distribution groups. Security groups are used to assign permissions to resources. Distribution groups are used only for email distribution lists and cannot be used to secure resources.

Groups also have different scopes: domain local, global, and universal. The scope determines where the group can have members and where it can be used to assign permissions. Domain local groups can have members from any domain but can only be used to assign permissions to resources within their own domain. Global groups can only have members from their own domain but can be used to assign permissions in any domain. Universal groups can have members from any domain and can be used to assign permissions in any domain.

The industry best practice for assigning permissions is to use a strategy called "AGDLP" or "AGUDLP." This stands for: Accounts go into Global groups, Global groups go into Domain Local groups, and the Domain Local group is assigned the Permission on the resource. For a multi-domain forest, the strategy is Accounts -> Global groups -> Universal groups -> Domain Local groups -> Permission.

This layered approach provides maximum flexibility. User and computer accounts, which represent business roles, are placed into global groups. The resource permissions are assigned to domain local groups. This decouples the management of users from the management of resource permissions, making the environment much easier to manage over the long term. Understanding and being able to apply this strategy is a key skill for the 70-413 Exam.

Designing an Administrative Delegation Model

The principle of least privilege is a cornerstone of good security design. It states that users and administrators should only be given the minimum level of permission required to perform their jobs. The 70-413 Exam requires you to be able to design a delegated administration model for Active Directory that adheres to this principle. The goal is to avoid giving out full domain administrator rights unless it is absolutely necessary.

The primary mechanism for delegating administration is by assigning permissions to Organizational Units (OUs). By creating a logical OU structure, as we discussed previously, you can grant different administrative teams control over just the objects that they are responsible for. For example, you can give the server administration team full control over the "Servers" OU but no administrative rights over the "Users" OU.

The simplest way to delegate control is to use the Delegation of Control Wizard in the Active Directory Users and Computers console. This wizard provides a simple, graphical interface that walks you through the process of granting common administrative tasks, such as resetting user passwords or creating new groups, to a specific user or group on an OU.

For more granular control, you can use the advanced security settings on an object or the dsacls command-line tool. This allows you to grant very specific permissions, such as the permission to modify only a single attribute of a user account. By combining a well-designed OU structure with a tiered model of administrative groups and granular permissions, you can create a secure and highly efficient delegated administration model.

Final Exam Day Tips

On the day of your 70-413 Exam, the key is to stay calm and methodical. This is particularly important for the case study format. Do not rush into answering the questions. Take the time to read the entire case study thoroughly first. A detail that seems minor on the first page could be the key to answering a question in the last section. Use the provided notepad to jot down the key business and technical requirements.

As you answer the questions, constantly refer back to the case study text. The correct answer will always be supported by the information provided in the scenario. Eliminate any answer choices that contradict a stated requirement or constraint. If a question asks for the most cost-effective solution, be sure to weigh the cost implications of each option. If it asks for the highest level of security, prioritize the options that provide the best protection.

After you have passed the 70-413 Exam, take a moment to acknowledge your significant accomplishment. This exam is a challenging test of your architectural skills. Passing it demonstrates that you have the ability to design enterprise-class server infrastructure solutions.

Passing the 70-413 Exam is a major step towards achieving the MCSE: Core Infrastructure certification. To complete the certification, you will also need to pass the other required exams in the path, such as the 70-414 (Implementing an Advanced Server Infrastructure) exam. This next exam builds on the design skills you have just validated and focuses on the advanced implementation and management of the technologies you have designed.

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