As I went through Lab 3, I realized that it was the first time I hadn't actually logged out of the server. This video is a quick tutorial on logging out of Server 8, including a surprise (to me) appearance of the Metro Interface.
This video covers Project 3.1, Part A. This lab shows you how to force replication. This could be one of the most useful tools you use in Active Directory. I would bookmark this section in your lab manual as you will be forcing replication several times in the upcoming labs.
In this part of the lab we look to create a manual connection object. This can be helpful if troubleshooting replication issues, but should not be a standard practice. We also find where the global catalog settings are located. (This will be important for an upcoming lab.)
I am not using a server core installation as I choose to use a GUI to teach the concepts. However, it is a good idea to still become familiar with command line commands. In this part of the lab, I use Powershell because this appears to be a staple in Server 8. I would also bookmark this part of the lab as it shows you how to replicate using command line.
This project can be useful if you have to configure a domain controller to be deployed at another site. We start by adding another network to IPv4. (I am not really looking forward to IPv6, though I've been told it's not as scary as the addressing appears to be.)
In this lab we configure new sites, and rename an existing one.
Creating a new subnet is really this easy. We just need to know what subnet to create. If you are doing the lab as I am with virtual machines, I recommend using the two subnets as stated in examples in the book: 192.168.1.0/24 and 192.168.2.0/24. It really doesn't matter as you will not break anything and will end up undoing this at the end of the lab. The important part of this is to recognize the classes of IP addresses as well as the network ID portion of the address.
In the final project of this lab we move computers and create site links. This is really as easy as moving files in folders Windows Explorer.
Hopefully you took a snapshot with your virtual machine and you can just revert to that. It is quicker.
On the other hand, it's not a bad idea to go through the cleanup to get additional practice with these concepts. Either way, before you move on, be sure your environment is as it was before starting Lab 3.
