Windows Network Services Proposal Scenario International Marketing, Inc. (referred to as IMI) has hired you as an IT consultant for their...

Windows Network Services Proposal

Scenario

International Marketing, Inc. (referred to as "IMI") has hired you as an IT consultant for their Windows network services infrastructure. IMI is a new advertising firm, and they have hired staff, are established in two locations, and have a need to get their internal IT services configured. They have an IT staff, but they do not have the in-house expertise to address their current infrastructure needs. 

You are required to supply IMI with a solution which addresses the integration and configuration of their Active Directory updates. Cost is not a significant concern - IMI wishes to implement the "right" solution to address their acquisition of a new company and its Active Directory forest which is comprised of a single domain. More specifically, IMI is based out of Houston, TX and they have a Windows Server 2012 domain that is operating at the Windows Server 2012 functional level. They recently acquired Media Guru Group which is based out of Richmond, VA, which has a domain (running Windows Server 2008 domain controllers) operating at the Windows Server 2003 functional level.

There are several details about IMI which will have an impact on your proposal:

·        IMI has restructured their organization they have a total of 110 employees in their Houston and Richmond sites. Each location the following departments:

·        IMI will have two sites, one in Houston, TX, and one in Richmond, VA. 

·        Executives (9 total with 5 in Houston, 4 in Richmond) - manage and run the company

·        Accounts and Sales Department (30 employees with 15 in Houston and 15 in Richmond) - perform market research and maintain accounts

·        Creative, Media and Production Department (49 employees in Houston) - advertising

·        Human Resources and Finances (12 employees in Houston) - perform HR and financial duties

·        IT (10 employees with 5 in Houston and 5 in Richmond) - manage IT for the company

·        Networking equipment is already in place for both sites, which are separate Active Directory Domains.

·        Security mechanisms (e.g., firewalls, intrusion detection) will be handled separately, and there is no need to describe them.

·        Some departments will want their data to remain private from other departments (e.g., Finances personnel will not want Production staff to see the company's financial details). Your team may make assumptions about how data should be shared or kept private.

·        Assumptions can be made regarding any information not included here; all assumptions should be identified, however.

Topics to Cover

Your document should cover the content presented in the course. The outline below contains recommended points to cover. You are free to add other related information.

Describe the technical and business reasons for each choice, citing other resources as appropriate. The Windows Server 2012 operating system should be used for all aspects of the solution.

The topics include:

Active Directory Infrastructure

·        Describe features of Windows Server 2012 that will allow IMI to integrate the newly acquired company's domain into their existing forest.

·        How will Forest Functional Levels be implemented?

·        How will cross-forest trusts be implemented?

·        How will replication be handled?

·        Read-Only Domain Controllers - how will they be used?

File and Storage Solutions

·        Will BranchCache be used? Why/Why not?

·        How can Dynamic Access Control benefit the organization?

·        What about storage optimization?

Disaster Recovery

·        How can Windows Server Backup be utilized?

·        Will the organization use Volume Shadow Copies?

DNS and DHCP

·        How had DHCP installation and authorization been implemented?

·        DHCP scope design (e.g., lease times, number of scopes, address range)

·        Will a form of DHCP fault tolerance be implemented?

·        Will DHCP reservations be used for servers?

·        How can IPAM be utilized?

·        How will IPv6 be utilized?

·        How will DNS be implemented?

·        DNS Security

·        How will DNS be handled for the second site?

High Availability

·        What implementation of Hyper-V would benefit IMI?

·        Network Load Balancing

·        Failover Clustering

Active Directory Certificate Services

·        Will AD Certificate Services used in both domains need to be modified?

Active Directory Rights Management Services

·        What use of AD Rights Management Services can be implemented?

Active Directory Federation Services

·        AD Federation Services