Microsoft Exam #70-290: Under New Management Been through exam #70-218? If so, then this exam covers a familiar mix of security, permissions and backup topics, with a heaping scoop of Windows 2003-specific features thrown in.
by Andy Barkl
8/27/2003 --
Windows Server 2003 offers many new features and services beyond those found
in Windows 2000 and the #70-290 exam reflects some of those differences. You'll
find it similar to #70-218, Managing a Microsoft Windows 2000 Network Environment,
where you were expected to prove your knowledge of AD, EFS, IIS, DNS and DCHP,
to name a few.
This new exam is similar in many respects as far as content, but includes additional
topics such as the new DNS zone types offered in Windows Server 2003 and IAS
and RRAS, which weren't as heavily tested in the Windows 2000 exam. This new
exam concentrates on using Windows Server 2003 and network management. You'll
need to demonstrate expertise in the areas of permissions, profiles, system
backup, disk management and a familiarity with new product features such as
Automated System Recovery (ASR) and Volume Shadow Copy. You'll also need to
dive into security from a Microsoft perspective to prepare for this exam, since
it's become more of a focus for the product.
What you probably won't be impressed with on this new exam is its engine. The
text is lengthy, scroll bars are touchy and the screen is often split into three
sections with lots of white space that you must scroll around in to move to
the next question!
I tackled 70-290 in its beta form and won't know how I did until shortly after
you've read this article. My intent in this review is to help you prepare for
the test by covering some of the objectives listed in the exam preparation guide.
The table below spells out other core requirements for each credential. I suggest
you start with the client exam then move in this order: 70-290, 70-291, 70-293,
70-294, 70-297 and 70-298, the same order recommended by Microsoft.
Table 1: Requirements
for each of the certification paths. Exam 70-290 satisfies a core requirement
for the MCSA-Windows 2003 and MCSE-Windows 2003.
Core
Exams MCSA-Windows 2003
Core
Exams MCSE-Windows 2003
Accelerated Path
MCSA-Windows 2000
Accelerated
Path MCSE-Windows 2000
Normal
Path MCSA-Windows 2000
70-290:
Managing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Environment
70-292:
Managing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Environment for
an MCSE Certified on Windows 2000
70-293:
Planning and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure
70-291:
Implementing, Managing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003
Network Infrastructure
x
70-293:
Planning and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure
No
other core or elective requirements necessary for MCSA-Windows
2000.
70-296:
Planning, Implementing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003
Environment for an MCSE Certified on Windows 2000
70-294:
Planning, implementing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003
Active Directory Infrastructure
70-294:
Planning, implementing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003
Active Directory Infrastructure
Core
Client (take one)
No
other core or elective requirements necessary for MCSE-Windows
2000.
No
additional Core Client Exam required.
70-210:
Installing, Configuring and Administering Windows 2000 Professional
70-270:
Installing, Configuring and Administering Windows XP Professional
xxx
Core
Design (take one)
Core
Design (take one)
70-297:
Designing a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory and Network
Infrastructure (Note: May be used as Design requirement or elective,
but not both)
70-297:
Designing a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory and Network
Infrastructure (Note: May be used as Design requirement or elective,
but not both)
70-298:
Designing Security for a Windows Server 2003 Network (Note:
May be used as Design requirement or elective, but not both)
70-298:
Designing Security for a Windows Server 2003 Network (Note:
May be used as Design requirement or elective, but not both)
Working with Devices
You'll need to demonstrate expertise with managing and maintaining physical
and logical devices. As an administrator or engineer you should be expected
to understand Basic and Dynamic disks, RAID configuration and troubleshooting,
driver signing and the use of tools such as Device Manager and Hardware Troubleshooting
Wizard.
Requirements
Spelled Out
-- advertisement (story continued below) --
Exam 70-290
is a core requirement for anyone wanting to be certified as
an MCSA or MCSE on Windows Server 2003. Of course, if you're
already certified on Windows 2000, you can bypass this one
and go straight to 70-292 for the MCSA upgrade or 70-292 and
70-296 for the MCSE upgrade. These exams won't encompass a
beta testing period since they'll include questions from other
Windows 2003 exams such as this one.
As a reminder, basic disks can be converted to dynamic with no data loss but
require backup and restore to revert back to basic. Dynamic disks are required
for Disk Striping, mirroring and striping with parity.
Tip: When repair is necessary for a RAID 1 member, the mirror is
first removed, failed member disk replaced, and the mirror recreated.
When updating drivers with Device Manager, the system driver signing includes
the options for Ignore, Warn (the default) and Block. Familiarize yourself with
Device Manager and the warning and disabled icons found when problems are present
on installed devices.
Users, Computers and Groups
The next objective, 'Managing Users, Computers and Groups,' includes
many topics, so you should be prepared to face many questions that fall into
this category.
Taking the 70-210 or 70-270 client OS exam before 70-290 will help. That ensures
you'll have a healthy introduction to profile management, user and group accounts,
permissions and troubleshooting.
The difference for this exam is you'll need to think more on a server and network
level rather than from the lone client desktop perspective.
Tip: These new exams include topics not necessarily on the list
of official exam objectives as posted from Microsoft. Better get used to it!
For example, although there's no mention of printers in the official exam
objectives, you should be prepared! After all, printers are bound to be part
of a production Windows 2003 network.
70-290:
Managing and Maintaining
Windows Server 2003
Exam
Title 70-290:
Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment
Status Expected to go live in August 2003.
Reviewer's
Rating "This exam is 'wordy' and requires expertise with Windows
permissions, profiles, system backup, disk management and
a familiarity with a few new server management features, ASR
and Volume Shadow Copy."
Who
Should Take It Core for MCSA and MCSE on Windows Server 2003.
ADUC, Active Directory Users and Computers, is the MMC snap-in used to create
user and group accounts, manage user profiles and group membership. It includes
the Delegation of Control Wizard, which is used to assign administrative permission
at the Organizational Unit (OU) level.
Windows 2000 and 2003 both include two types of groups, Security and Distribution.
Security groups are used in the traditional sense to group users for permissions
to network resources. Distribution groups are used for e-mail only.
Tip: Remember AGUDLP If you're not familiar with the way Windows
is designed for managing folder and file permissions, you need to study! Accounts
are placed into Global Groups, which are placed into Universal Groups, which
are placed into Domain Local Groups where Permissions are assigned. Accounts
can also be placed directly into DL groups.
Active Directory objects such as user, group and computer accounts all have
permissions assigned that can be inherited from higher levels or removed by
using Block Inheritance.
If you've worked with Windows 2000, then you know that Group Policies enable
centralized management of user and computer settings throughout the network.
GP Objects or GPOs can be used to perform a variety of administrative tasks,
including configuration of desktop settings, control of security settings, assignment
of scripts, redirection of folders and software distribution. Group Policies
are inherited by child domains from sites or child OUs within domains unless
you enable Block Policy Inheritance, which can be reversed with No Override
at a higher level. You can also filter inheritance with Read and Apply Group
Policy permissions at the user or group level.
Resources
The objective Managing and Maintaining Access to Resources encompasses
shared folder permissions and Terminal Services, among other topics.
Administrators and Server operators have the default rights to create and manage
shared folders. Read, Change and Full Control are still present and cumulative.
NTFS permissions are also cumulative but the most restrictive prevails when
combined with shared folder permissions. Deny overrides all other permissions!
Files and folders can be encrypted with EFS, which requires NTFS. Don't forget
to brush up on how folder and file permissions can change or stay the same when
copying or moving within a drive or between drives.
The names have changed slightly. Windows 2000 Terminal Services remote administration
mode is called Remote Desktop for Administration in Windows Server 2003. There
have been many improvements made to Terminal Services, but it still operates
the same, and daily administration hasn't changed much. However, expect coverage
on the exam around such areas as licensing and remote connection management.
The Server Environment
In the objective Managing and Maintaining a Server Environment you'll find coverage
of topics such as Event Viewer, System Monitor, software updates (including
the functionality of Microsoft's Software Update Service or SUS), Remote Assistance,
disk quotas, print queues, performance objects and IIS 6.0.
Event Viewer is the first resource most administrators refer to when checking,
monitoring and troubleshooting application, security and system events. It allows
you to filter displayed logged events by date, time, user and many other options.
System Monitor is the tool of choice when monitoring system activity in real
time. Make sure you understand the most popular object counters such as % Processor
Time, % Disk Time, Pages/Second and Page/Faults for memory objects.
New to the Windows Server 2003 exams is SUS. Although it's an add-on component
in a Windows network, it's required these days for deploying and managing client
and server critical updates. Through the Automatic Updates option built in since
Windows 2000, client computers can be redirected to internal SUS servers instead
of windowsupdate.microsoft.com. This allows administrators to better plan, test
and track changes.
Tip: SUS requires IIS!
Speaking of IIS, another new version has arrived: 6.0. It's more secure by
design and out of the box. In the course of your studies and experimentation,
remember: This exam is about server and network administration. Spend time understanding
IIS topics around Web sites, Virtual and physical directories, files and host
and cname records in DNS.
Tip: Multiple Web sites can be hosted on a single IIS server with
unique IP addresses, port numbers or host headers.
Disaster Recovery
Included in the final objective on the list, Managing and Implementing Disaster
Recovery, you'll find coverage of ASR, VSS, backing up files and system state
data, configuring security for backup operators, verifying backup jobs, managing
media, restoring and scheduling backups and recovering from server hardware
failures.
Automated System Recovery (ASR) allows you quickly and automatically to bring
a non-bootable machine to a state where you can run a restore program to recover
data. ASR will configure the new storage devices and restore the operating system,
all applications and settings. The process for recovering a system using ASR
is as follows:
Boot from a Windows Server CD and choose Automated System Recovery.
Provide access to the backup media and a pre-prepared ASR floppy.
Take a break. You'll come back to a working server with the operating system.
To use ASR, you have to prepare an ASR backup first. An ASR backup is a regular
system backup plus the ASR floppy disk. This disk contains important configuration
information about the server's storage system as well as information on how
to restore the backup.
When you boot from the product CD and press the F8 key, you'll enter the ASR
bootstrap program. The ASR code in Windows setup knows how to read the ASR floppy
disk to reconfigure the server's storage system. ASR will automatically invoke
the restore program to restore the rest of the data from the ASR backup.
Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) is another new feature, which allows administrators
to create a point-in-time copy of user files that the user can access and restore
when previous versions are needed. These snapshots can save both IT staff and
users a whole lot of time usually spent waiting for manual restore operations
of accidentally deleted files from tape. As the server administrator you can
schedule the copy time-for instance twice a day at 0700 and 1200 hours, five
days a week. If the amount of user data is great and changes often, you can
even store this data on alternate server volumes!
If you have hosts other than Windows Server 2003 such as XP, Windows 2000 with
SP3 or Windows 98, you'll need to install the shadow copy volume component available
on the XP product CD (%Windir%\System32\Clients\Twclient\X86 or download it
from http://www.microsoft.com)
to enable the use of previous file access and restore. Once configured per volume,
users will find the Previous Versions tab in the properties selection for files
and folders on a network shares. Users can then select View, Copy or Restore;
they'll be presented with a list of read-only file and folder copies they can
access. For more information see the white paper, "Introduction to Shadow Copies
of Shared Folders," at www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/docs/SCR.doc.
10
Things To Practice
Configure
and troubleshoot shared folders permissions-again, and again
and again. Create different scenarios for your family and
friends group accounts. Be the network administrator!
Configure
Volume Shadow Copy Service on your server and don't turn
it off. (This has got to be one of the coolest new features
of Windows Server 2003!) Load the client component and restore
previously deleted files.
Run
Automated System Recovery, even if you don't want to simulate
a dead server. Be sure to follow the steps I outline in
the main article and in the help files.
Download
and install Software Update Services on your server. Download
the latest Windows updates and configure the client to use
your SUS server.
Run
server backups if only to a file as the destination. Just
as important, restore the backups and verify EFS, compression
and NTFS permissions remain the same.
Create
and assign permissions to printer users and change them
for fun! Find out what happens when you stop the printer
spooler service.
Create
a few group policies and explore the different computer
and user settings available. Link a GPO to a parent OU and
view the results of computer and user accounts changes within
child OUs with and without Block Policy Inheritance and
No Override.
Create
user accounts in Active Directory for your family and friends.
Add them to groups and log on with their accounts from a
client or a second server. Change group scope and membership,
practice using the AGUDLP.
Configure
inheritance and inheritance blocking with AD objects. Set
permissions and view their effects when accessed by different
family members and friends.
Configure
and recover RAID arrays. Get at least three small hard drives
and create a stripe, mirror and stripe set with parity configuration.
Disconnect one of the RAID 1 or 5 drives and reconnect for
a recovery scenario. Watch how Windows 2003 behaves and
the warning and error messages it displays.
Data and system backups are still a must with Windows 2003 even with all the
new file management services. Make sure you understand the nuances of backup,
such as which is the fastest backup type (full, incremental or differential)
and which is the fastest to restore or uses the fewest number of tapes? The
answers to these questions are the same as they've always been! Incremental
is the fastest but starts with a full backup. Differential offers the fastest
restore, but full backup use the least amount of tape per backup cycle.
Tip: Backup of the System State includes the system files, the
registry, Component Services and the Active Directory database Certificate
Services.
Running the backup program still requires either Administrator or Backup operator
permission. To run the backup program using Task Scheduler, you'll need to be
a member of the administrator, backup operator or server operator group.
Server hardware failures happen! Windows 2003 offers ASR, but that doesn't
address all troubleshooting and repair needs an administrator may have. Other
resources include Performance console, Task Manager and Recovery Console. Make
sure you understand which tool to use when the fatal time comes as well as how
each serves a different purpose. Be sure to study each one and get the hands-on
necessary to show your expertise!
Study
resources for Windows Server 2003 can be found within the
help and documentation of the product. Of course, you'll also
want as much hands-on practice as you can obtain. If your
company hasn't made the move yet, work with the 180-day evaluation,
available here: www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/trial/default.mspx.
I would
expect self-study guides from sources such as Microsoft Press,
New Riders, Sybex and others to start appearing in late August
or early September.
You can
also take the Microsoft official training course at your local
CTEC from an MCT. The course numbers are 2274 and 2275.
Good luck!
Have you taken this exam? Rate it below!
Andy Barkl, CCNP, CCDP, CISSP, MCT, MCSE:Security, MCSA:Security, A+, CTT+,
i-Net+, Network+, Security+, Server+, CNA, has over 19 years of experience in
the IT field. He's the owner of MCT & Associates LLC, a technical training
and consulting firm in Phoenix, Arizona. He spends much of his time in the classroom
but has also been responsible for many Microsoft Windows 2000, Exchange 2000,
and Cisco networking deployments for many clients across Arizona. He's also
the online editor for MCPMag.com, TCPMag.com, CertCities.com, and a contributing
author and editor for Sybex and Cisco Press. He hosts a multitude of exam preparation
chats monthly on MCPmag.com, TCPmag.com and CertCities.com. You can reach him
at andy.barkl@wetrainit.com.
There are 37 user Comments for “Microsoft Exam #70-290: Under New Management” The current user rating is:
Page 1 of 4
9/24/03: mollo from netherlands says:
Did it twice and ouch, the knowledge of a lot of details and hands on experienceare required for the exam with exact steps on how to accomplish a task. I think that the score needed needs to be reviewed, a passing score 0f 700 with much questions in quit a short time became a real problem to me.
mcp, ccna, securityplus, aplus, nplus
10/2/03: Anonymous says:
Secplus, aplus, and nplus are worthless. No wonder you failed.
10/9/03: Robert from Alaska says:
Nice civilized/professional response by the previous indidvidual - I sure hope I don't work with slime like that!!!!! - guess that's why its an ananonymous response... takes less guts that way
10/13/03: To Anon 10-2 says:
You are worthless...what certs do you have Mr. Bigshot. I bet you don't even have a HS diploma. You probably live in a trailer park in Alabama, and work in the local Quikie Mart sweeping floors. I'll bet you even married your first cousin, and named your two-headed child Bubba after your dear old Grandma. You've probably been driving around in your Pinto with a doughnut, because you the junkyard your Mom works at hasn't received a new shipment of worn out tires. Maybe someday when your VD clears up you can try an have some more rugrats so the average IQ in your state can drop a few more points. At least some people have taken the initiative to study for some elementary certs to try and make themselves better. You should take a lesson from Mollo (9-24), he is trying to learn. Ah well...like your dear old Daddy Billy-John-Joe used to say..."Edumawhat?"
10/15/03: DUMP-HUNTER from Australia says:
Crikey!!! I've tackled all those nasty new MCSE 2003 exams and you have to been really careful. Mate, there soooo tuff. So similiar to the 2000 exams but some of the questions are real nasty. Better get some good dumps or your wallets gonna get bitten.
10/16/03: mollo from netherlands says:
got it, thank god my boss pays for them, and o yes anonymous, i only wanted to say with the summing of my certs that i'm not a newbie with my comments. In learning without cheets offcourse.
10/30/03: Kenneth Sundby from Sweden says:
I actually failed this the first time with 675 of 700 (ouch). This is a really tricky test, and I really got afraid when they started throwing Visual Basic Scripting questions at me, I mean a real script where they had taken some lines out and I was supposed to correct it, oh well. Passed it now though, and I would say it is difficult, but manageable if you know what you are doing, study hard and do hands on practices.
Oh, and to the Anononymous loser, why would you even bother with a comment like that? Besides, I thought the security plus was a good cert, did you ever take it or are you just full of it?
10/31/03: matthew from UK says:
It is hard you really need to play and crash the servers and recover them to get used to working in there way even if some times it the wrong way!!
12/18/03: Rob Clubley from Leeds, UK says:
I took this exam the day after attending the 2274 and 2275 courses. I've been using 2000 and NT servers for some years and have been in IT for 8 years, so I have plenty of relevant experience. I found the exam pretty hard, mainly because you have to work out exactly what they mean on each question. There always seem to be two answers that could be correct until you re-read the question and work out which it is! In short, make sure you study and take practice exams beforehand.
P.S. I have the NetworkPlus and I thought it was a good test of all-round networking knowledge.
12/28/03: Angel says:
i got to say that i am netplus and aplus, netplus is a great exam to learn theory on how the internet works. You actually learn something that is non vendor based. I have studied for mcp exams and is so boring. Anybody can sit there and learn where to point and click and what commands to use. Its all a bunch of nonsense microsoft made up anyway. For the anon guy who wrote. your are an idiot. You probably cant find a job despite your certs because you are an asshole that nobody wants to work with.
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