Manufactures And Distributes Solar Panel Assessment Answer

You have been hired by Crete LLC as an Information Technology consultant to develop a
technology proposal. Crete LLC manufactures and distributes solar panel for the consumer
market. Your job is to submit a proposal that meets their criteria.

Active Directory

There are various good ways for developing this network. In this example, I would recommend Crete LLC, which we will look at as a customer, have at least three servers, at a minimum, it will provide one server per location. It is my proposal that we give two servers to every area, a local controller for the domain and keeps a copy of the Active Directory, and the other is entirely a document sharing service that will be accessible at all areas. I would have recognized what facilities we will implement to meet the needs of the customer. Currently, Crete LLC is using Microsoft Windows Server 2012 edition Active Directory domain infrastructure which is being supported by the relationship of child/parent. DC1 will be forest root DC, also its FQDN name will be CreteLLC.com which be acting as parent domain controller. Hutson will be the location for a second domain controller that will be providing different roles, and the naming convention of Houston.CreteLLC.com. As the domain of Dallas and Los Angeles are a child, so they will be having a common shared name which will be: Dallas.CreteLLC.com and LA.CreteLLC.com. The child's domain name is directly associated with the name of its original/parent domain, which has its unique domain name system (DNS). (Microsoft, Active Directory, 1999)

Database security is very important while maintaining trademarks and patent, this is the reason that there is a need for a secure remote connection between the offices of Hutson and Los Angeles. Just a read-only domain controller will be required for connecting to the LA office with safe remote access to the domain of Houston, as the branch of LA is small and the requirement for direct support of administrator is less important than the Houston office. Security benefits will be provided by DC4's RODC, as replication will be happening only from Hutson to Los Angeles while achieving the requirements of the replication of passwords and separation of the roles of admins. (Kedar). After this, FSMO roles should be identified and kept within the network.

Global Catalog and FSMO

While setting up a domain, it is important to consider the roles of FSMO. There is total of 5 roles of FSMO that need to be considered and to avoid creating any kind of failure. Among the three domains, these roles will be divided. Domain master and schema master are the two type of forest roles that DC1 will have. (Microsoft, FSMO placement, and optimization on Active Directory domain controllers, 2017) Both come under enterprise roles and they are best for installation on the domain of forest level. The DC2 server will be installed with RID master and PDC eliminator. While the Infrastructure Master will have served as a global catalog server on DC1 and DC3. 

We will utilize a model of the multi master for FSMO roles. This will mean that every domain controller we be master of its own and they will be receiving their own updates. They can be self-reliant configured, and across the forest, they will send their own message. There may be some conflicts with updating particularly this model, but luckily using "Windows to solve DC" using these algorithms (TechNet, 2014). 

Group Policy

Network breach could heavily cost a company, so it is always recommended not to run any system or PC with a default password. With the help of GPOs, also known as Group Policy Objects complexities of the password could be easily regulated by configuration, how often a user can try to enter the wrong password before he exits the system and more. There are benefits in addition to the option of the event log that GPOs use in the reporting of events on the network. UAC also known as User Accounts Controls are used for systems or PCs that will make it hard to run any malicious software on the network without crashing the machine. (Tulloch, 2013)

DNS

DNS or Domain Name Service is a name that is given to internet domain so that it could be located and translate to an internet protocol or IP. With regards to Crete LLC, we will provide internal domain name as internal.crete.com and external or public domain name as certe.com. This will make it possible for multi-master replication, along with highly secure DNS. The client will be able to locate the domain when DNS is required by AD DS. (Ahmed, Reaz, Atiquzzaman, & Fu, 2005). 

File Services 

As per the working of Crete, LLC works, data security very is important for the organization, because of the encrypted drive, it will not be easy for anyone to manage the data if the drive gets stolen or lost. NTFS security permissions will be used for the network so that users need to know how to limit access to folders. The NTFS quota will be used to "restrict the number of hard drive space for users on a server" (Russinovich, Solomon, & Ionescu, 2009).  This will restrict the users to use a lot of space on file servers. 
Crete LLC is located in three different regions, so there is a possibility that all of them will need to access files and data from each other. We will implement DFS (Distributed File Services) because it "enables for a group of shared servers that are in one or more logically-structured namespaces on different servers, users can see namespace as a single folder with subfolders. (Rao, 1989). With the help of DFS, within in the Crete LLC, multiple targets for various servers can be configured within the single folder. After this, with the help of replication between the servers, all the folders will sync. DFS has many advantages, including the fact that "it randomly distributes file access to balance load on many discrete disk drives or servers and to improve time of response during peak usage". (Microsoft, DFS Namespaces and DFS Replication Overview, 2016).  All the namespace will be based on a domain like:\\CreteLLC.com\public. 
We will implement FSRM for the management of disk quotas. FSRM means File Service Resource Manager, it helps admins in managing and classifying the data stored in file servers, this is set up in storage and file server. In Crete LLC we will be implementing 150 MB for users and 300 MB additional for Sales and Managers. FSRM will be used to control email storage, in which a level of 75 MB is set for warning message and 100 MB and above data will be restricted to send. Here also we will allow additional 300 MB for Sales and Managers. To ensure that one server is not facing heavy load during the failures and issues, we will implement file share system. 

Remote Service

The technology Remote Access in computer networking allows a user to log in that computer as an authorized user and this can be done without sitting on that computer or system. For this, we will use direct accessibility which is a technique similar to VPN (Traditional), but it is more secure than VPN.  
Direct Access Client will be used because they have more capacity to manage, DAC will be having direct connectivity with the management servers which will allow keeping everything to under security compliance. (DirectAccess: Microsoft's Newest VPN Solution - Part 1: Overview of Current Remote Access Solutions - TechGenix, n.d.). From direct access, IT will help in managing those customers who are not physically involved in providing a communication method for management or sales.

WSUS (Windows Server Update Services)

WSUS is also known as Windows Server Updates Services, it was earlier also known as Software Update Services. In this, a program which is developed by Microsoft helps admin in managing the hotfixes and updates which are released for Microsoft products. (Service Pack and Update Center, n.d.) CreteLLC.com will environment of various independent servers. DC1 will be downloading updates from the Microsoft Update server and acting as child WSUS DC2, DC3 and DC4 will be updated on this basis. Everything will be managed automatically on this server.  
The system or PCs of the client will be configured for targeting client site. This will also to create a testing environment before implementing the same on other computers. This can be important when ideas of some applications may be incompatible with new updates. After a successful test of more than one-week trial, it can be implemented on a larger scale. (Foust, Chellis, Sheltz, & Sage London, 2006)

Summary

Crete LLC will have strong network framework after implementing the above-recommended solutions. It will provide security as well as scalability which Crete LLC needs for their success and their growth. DC1 will be provided with Forest FSMO role and DC2 and DC3 roles will be provided with domain FSMO roles. For extra security group policy will be used. Those users like Managers and Salespersons, who have clients will be provided with remote access. Windows will be loading from child servers which will relate to main server DC1. 

Bibliography

Ahmed, A., Reaz, S., Atiquzzaman, M., & Fu, S. (2005). Performance of DNS as location manager. Retrieved 2 13, 2018, from http://cs.ou.edu/~netlab/pub/dns-lm-eit05-final-1.pdf
Foust, M., Chellis, J., Sheltz, M., & Sage London, S. (2006). MCSE Windows Server 2003 network infrastructure planning and maintenance study guide. John Wiley and Sons. Retrieved 2 13, 2018
Kedar, S. (n.d.). Database Management Systems. Technical Publications. Retrieved 2 11, 2018, from https://books.google.com/books?id=Mv_anxicHoEC
Microsoft. (1999). Active Directory. Retrieved from Microsoft Developers Network: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb742424.aspx
Microsoft. (2016, 08 31). DFS Namespaces and DFS Replication Overview. Retrieved from Microfost Docs: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj127250(v=ws.11).aspx
Microsoft. (2017, 06 08). FSMO placement and optimization on Active Directory domain controllers. Retrieved 2 11, 2018, from Microsoft Support: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/223346
Rao, A. K. (1989). The DFS distributed file system: Design and implementation. Retrieved 2 13, 2018, from http://scholarworks.rit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1322&context=theses
Russinovich, M. E., Solomon, D. A., & Ionescu, A. (2009). Windows Internals. Microsoft Press. Retrieved 2 13, 2018
Service Pack and Update Center. (n.d.). Retrieved 2 13, 2018, from http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/service-packs-download#sptabs=win7
TechNet, M. (2014, April 23). Active Directory FSMO Roles in Windows. Retrieved from Microsoft TechNet: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/197132
Tulloch, M. (2013). Introducing Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Release. Microsoft Press. Retrieved 2 13, 2018, from http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/4/1/741189C7-ECC5-4012-BCC2-E94D5DD7145E/Microsoft_Press_ebook_Introducing_Windows_Server_2012_R2_Preview_PDF.pdf