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GPO/GPP – Control the Local Administrators Group

GPO/GPP – Control the Local Administrators Group

Feb 11, 2017 | | 4 |

One of the issues that data center or even any Windows Administrator has is managing the local administrators group on each and every one of their domain members. There is a lovely security setting that has been around for many years, Restricted Groups, which can be controlled via local security policies of via GPO. This works, but has a few pitfalls as you’ve probably run into once in a while. Keep reading to see how you can solve some of them with Group Policy Preferences.

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SCCM – Using Multiple SUPs, but clients aren’t switching

SCCM – Using Multiple SUPs, but clients aren’t switching

Feb 2, 2017 | , , | 1 |

One of the issues I’ve come across is using Configuration Managers (2012 R2+) feature of being able to deploy multiple Software Update Points (SUP) within a site. This scenario is essentially to avoid using traditional network load balancing (NLB) and offload the work to the clients. One would think, if one SUP is not available it’s pretty simple, switch to the next one in the list. Well this doesn’t always happen as one may expect. Why?

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Configuring Multiple Software Update Points (SUP) in SCCM

Configuring Multiple Software Update Points (SUP) in SCCM

Jan 26, 2017 | , , | 1 |

I was working on a SCCM deployment where there was already one existing Software Update Point (SUP). Due to new firewall restrictions, a few new SUPs were required. Microsoft has changed their best practices with SCCM in regards to using multiple SUPs. The best practice is to share the WSUS Database (SUSDB) and the WSUS content directory. This cuts down on a lot of space, replication and administrative issues.

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PowerShell – My way to prepare a SQL Server VM

PowerShell – My way to prepare a SQL Server VM

Dec 22, 2016 | , | 0 |

As I get called on a lot of to do SQL Server installations, I’ve come up with what I’ve found works best for me. Every location has different infrastructure, security, networks and their way of doing things. Since I’m the one doing the installation, and I know I’ll get called back in the future at some point to upgrade, troubleshoot or manage the SQL Server environment, I like to have a set of standards. Documentation, I actually do enjoy writing it (yes I may be sick), but having a self-documenting PowerShell script is even better!

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PowerShell – Start-Service, Stop-Service, they work, but not always well enough!

PowerShell – Start-Service, Stop-Service, they work, but not always well enough!

Dec 16, 2016 | , | 1 |

Well as the title suggests, I’m happy with the code, but I always find myself adding more and more code around the cmdlets. Service control in Windows has been pretty straight forward for the past few decades. Obviously PowerShell can control the state and configuration of services, but one thing I’ve always run into with service control is reacting to how the service stops and starts and also managing the state of dependent services. I’m sharing some short code functions that I use.

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PowerShell – Is your AD Sites and Services missing subnets?

PowerShell – Is your AD Sites and Services missing subnets?

Nov 30, 2016 | , , | 2 |

This has been a very common pain point for Active Directory administrators. AD is perfectly planned according to Microsoft’s best practices and successfully deployed. But as time goes on, network admins change the network topology, devices are added here and there and if there is no formal process of adding new networks, AD Sites and Services will mostly likely not be updated to reflect these changes.

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