MCSA Managing a Windows 2000 Network Environment Exam Cram 2 (Exam 70-218)

From Barnes & Noble

According to Microsoft, before you even sign up for this exam, you ought to have at least six months' experience administering and supporting Windows 2000 in medium-to-very-large computing environments running Active Directory directory services.

Even if you have that experience, Exam 70-218 is no piece of cake. The breadth of knowledge you'll need is daunting: from managing disk quotas to configuring authentication and SSL, troubleshooting infrastructure to interpreting startup logs. Whatever other preparation resources you own, it'll be worth your while to include Que's MCSA Managing a Windows 2000 Network Environment ExamCram 2 (Exam 70-218).

This is the best-distilled Exam 70-218 prep guide we've seen. It'll tell you where you stand in a hurry -- and it covers the essence of every exam objective equally fast. Like every book in Que's new Exam Cram 2 series, it packs a ton of great study resources into a very small package.

There's the up-front assessment designed to help you take stock of your experience. Hotlists tell you exactly what terminology and techniques you'll need to master -- and nearly 150 end-of-chapter questions make sure you've mastered them. Dozens of Exam Alerts call out material that Microsoft is especially likely to stress on the exam.

There's a complete sample exam, plus even more practice questions on the accompanying PrepLogic CD-ROM (which also contains an electronic copy of the whole book, great for studying on the road). There's the handy cardboard last-minute study sheet, a quick Windows networking glossary, and lots more we haven't mentioned.

Author Kalani Kirk Hausman brings more than 20 years' experience as a consultant, trainer, security administrator, DBA, net admin, IT manager, and programmer. He covers this material not merely from an "academic" point of view but as a real working administrator.

After a high-level overview of TCP/IP, he introduces the key aspects of Active Directory structure that are covered on Exam 70-218, including domain controllers, the Global Catalog, FSMO roles, trusts, OUs, trees, forests, and more. Next, it's on to name resolution in Windows 2000 networks, including both the fully qualified domain naming that's native to Win2K and WinXP and the legacy NetBIOS naming that's still in use on quite a few networks. Hausman also quickly reviews several Windows command-line utilities available for troubleshooting name resolution problems.

After a concise look at DHCP leasing, server setup, and scope configuration, Hausman returns to Active Directory, covering key skills every Windows AD administrator needs to have. These include techniques for assigning delegated access rights and permissions; recognizing standard access permissions and their uses; resolving access rights conflicts; and finally, customizing Microsoft Management Console to your unique environment.

You'll move on to Microsoft's powerful group policies, which give you extraordinary control over your Windows desktops' configurations and behaviors -- and allow you to exercise this control with unprecedented flexibility. Misusing group policies is worse than not using them at all: It's no wonder Microsoft expects you to have a deep and sophisticated understanding of them.

One concept at a time, Hausman walks you through the essentials of Windows 2000 resource management and system configuration, remote access, network security, and more. There's a full chapter on configuring and creating web sites with Internet Information Server, and another on troubleshooting, diagnostics, and software updates.

Whether you use this book as a starting point for review, a last-minute refresher, or a complement to a more exhaustive study resource (such as Que's MCSA: Managing a Windows 2000 Network Environment Training Guide), you'll get your money's worth -- and a good deal more. Bill Camarda

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.