Installing Active Directory on Windows Server 2012

Installing Active Directory

1. Open the Server Manager from the task bar. 

2. From Server Manager Dashboard select Add roles and features. This will launch the Roles and Features Wizard allowing for modifications to be performed on the Windows Server 2012 instance.

3. Select Role-based or features-based installation from the Installation Type screen and click Next. 

Note: Roles are the major feature sets of the server, such as IIS, and features provide additional functionality for a given role.

4. The current server is selected by default. Click Next to proceed to the Server Roles tab.

5. From the Server Roles page place a check mark in the box next to Active Directory Domain Services. A notice will appear explaining additional roles services or features are also required to install domain services, click Add Features.

Note: There are other options including, Certificate services, federation services, lightweight directory services and rights management. Domain Services is the glue that holds this all together and needs to be installed prior to these other services.

6. Review and select optional features to install during the AD DS installation by placing a check in the box next to any desired features; Once done click Next.

7. Review the information on the AD DS tab and click Next.

8. Review the installation and click Install.

Note: The installation progress will be displayed on the screen. Once installed the AD DS role will be displayed on the 'Server Manager' landing page.

Configuring Active Directory

Once the AD DS role is installed the server will need to be configured for your domain.

1. If you have not done so already, Open the Server Manager from the task bar. 

2. Open the Notifications Pane by selecting the Notifications icon from the top of the Server Manager. From the notification regarding configuring AD DS click Promote this server to a domain controller.

3. From the Deployment Configuration tab select Add a new forest from the radial options menu. Insert your root domain name into the Root domain name field.

 

4. Review and select a Domain and Forest functional level. Once selected fill in a DSRM password in the provided password fields. The DSRM password is used when booting the Domain Controller into recovery mode.

Note: The selection made here will have lasting effects to features and server domain controller eligibility. For further information on Domain/Forest functional levels see official Microsoft documentation.

5. Review the warning on the DNS Options tab and select Next.

6. Confirm or enter a NetBIOS name and click Next.

7. Configure the location of the SYSVOL, Log files, and Database folders and click Next.

8. Review the configuration options and click Next.

9. The system will check to ensure all necessary prerequistes are installed on the system prior to moving forward. If the system passes these checks you will proceed by clicking Install.

Note: The server will automatically be rebooted once the installation completes.

10. Once the server is done rebooting reconnect via RDP. Congratulations on successfully installing and configuring a Active Directory Domain Services on Windows Server 2012.

SQL Server 2014 Install – Step by Step

The step by step install process for a standalone install.

Step 1  – The landing page looks pretty similar to the earlier versions, and you can choose the installation tab to get things started.

Step 2 – Choose the stand-alone install option, and it will take you to the product key page.

Step 3 – This screen is where you need to accept the license terms. There is also an option to turn on select Customer Experience Improvement Program and Error Reporting.

Step 4 – 6 These are the steps where Global Rules, Product Updates are checked and Setup files are extracted and installed. If the checks are good, then the install will proceed to the next step automatically.

Step 7 – Install rules are checked for this step, and I have highlighted a check which was interesting to me.

 Step 8 – This step provides you with Feature installation options. In this install I will discuss about the first option, ie SQLServer Feature Installation.

Step 9 –  This step is where you will select the features. I’m choosing only those ones which I need for my testing.

Step 10 – This step lets you decide if you want to go with Default Instance or a Named Instance.

Step 11 – This step lets you select the account for the services. I’m choosing all defaults as that’s good for my test lab.

Step 12 – This step lets you choose the Authentication mode, Data directories, and File Stream options.

Step 13 – Feature Configuration Rules step. As mentioned earlier if the checks are fine, setup automatically proceeds to the next step.

Step 14 – This is the final step of the installation, and you can pick the ConfigurationFile.ini from the path

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\120\Setup Bootstrap\Log\Date_Time\ConfigurationFile.ini

If everything goes smooth, your install will succeed.

I’m really excited about some real good features in SQLServer 2014,and I will be writing about them during the next couple of days.

Installing Windows Server 2012 (step by step)

In this easy step by step guide, we will learn how to install and activate Windows Server 2012.

Before you start make sure you have the minimum requirements to install Windows Server (Windows Server Requirements):

Processor: Minimum: 1.4 GHz 64-bit processor
Ram: Minimum: 512 MB
Disk Space: Minimum: 32 GB

Now that we have everything we need, We can Start:

1- Insert the Windows Server 2012 DVD, and once you get the following message press Enter to boot from the setup

2- Wait for a while till the setup loads all necessary files (Depending on your machine, it will take couple of minutes)

 3- Once the setup files are loaded, the setup will start with the following screen. You can change these to meet your needs (the default values should be fine for now)

 4- Once you click Next, you can start the installation, click "Install now"

5- You will see the following screen, wait until it finishes loading

6- In the following setup screen, you will see four options. Select Windows Server 2012 DataCenter Evaluation (Server With GUI).

7- After you click Next from previous screen, Read the License terms, tick the "I accept the license terms" and click Next

8- Now It will ask you for the drive (or partition) you want to install Windows on. Here I'm installing it on the one partition I have here. NOTE: This will remove the content of the partition. Either you create a partition to install windows on, or you can test this on a testing machine

9- Now once we picked our partition, clicking on next from previous screen will start the setup. This process might take a while.

10- Once the setup is done, it will restart and start your Windows Server 2012 for the first time. It will ask you then to set up a password for the Administrator user

11- The setup will finalize your settings, might take a couple of minutes

12- Once the setup is done, you can log in for the first time to your Windows Server, as the screen says, press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to log in, and use the password you set in the setup process


13 - Once you Log in, Windows Server 2012 will show the Server Manager

Congratulations! you have now Windows server 2012 Installed with Datacenter.

SharePoint 2010 Minimum Requirements

Hardware Requirements

SharePoint Servers

SharePoint 2013’s Minimum Requirements are the same as SharePoint 2010’s.  Here is a table that shows the Minimum Requirements for both servers.

SharePoint 2013 scenarios Base Installation:

SharePoint Servers

Compared to the Hardware part, the Minimum Software Requirements for SharePoint Server 2013 are different from SharePoint Server 2010.  For SharePoint 2013 you need:

Microsoft also released the Prerequisites that will be installed by the SharePoint prerequisite installer. This is very interesting if you want to do a complete offline installation.  Here they are:

Database Servers

The minimum Software requirements for the Database Servers are also higher: 

Flavors Of SharePoint Server

First, there is a clear distinction between a SharePoint version and a SharePoint edition.

A SharePoint version identifies the overall version of the product, which are SharePoint 2013,SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2007, and SharePoint 2003. So you see they are usually associated with a year.

The different Editions of SharePoint are the different flavors. So in SharePoint 2010 for example, we have 3 different Edition and they are:

1. SharePoint Foundation
2. SharePoint Server Standard
3. SharePoint Server Enterprise

SharePoint Foundation as the name states is the most fundamental form of SharePoint and includes the most basic functionality that makes SharePoint what it is. Those functionalities include document libraries, sites, discussions, calendars, etc.

SharePoint Server Standard includes all the features of SharePoint Foundation and adds more to it. Some of those additional functionalities are Publishing Features, My Sites, In-built workflows among many others.

Finally, SharePoint Server Enterprise includes all the features of Foundation and Standard and extends SharePoint with even more functionality. Some of which are Excel Services, Access Services and InfoPath in the browser.

For a complete list of SharePoint Edition Comparison go to Microsoft Website.

 If you are still uncertain which one you will need, we recommend you start with the Foundation until you realize there is a feature that you need in the Standard. And, yes, the upgrade path is easy between the Foundation and the other editions. We hope that helps. - See more at: http://www.portalfronthosting.com/blog/which-edition-of-sharepoint-2010-to-start-with#sthash.aiOyo1cA.dpuf