Server Purpose and Function

0:00All right, so what is a server?

0:03Some of you might already know what a server is.

0:05I think we all do to a certain point,

0:07but in this particular skill,

0:09in the first skill of this course,

0:11I'm gonna kinda go over some of the basics of servers.

0:14Some of you have only worked with certain aspects of it,

0:16so you might need to have some additional information

0:19about various roles that it can take and stuff like that.

0:22Also, this image behind me, by the way,

0:24if you're not, haven't already guessed,

0:26it's not actually a server room.

0:28It's a illustration of a server room,

0:31and usually they're not curved like this.

0:33That's really not possible.

0:35This looks like the server room

0:36from the Millennium Falcon or something like that.

0:39But anyway, otherwise though, yeah,

0:41usually the servers that we talk about

0:43are very often in racks like what you see behind me,

0:45but not always.

0:46And in fact, let's take a look here

0:48at what a server actually is.

0:50So first of all, just an overview.

0:53And again, I wanna emphasize,

0:55I'm starting here at more of an entry level.

0:58We're very well acquainted with servers already.

1:00You've worked with them for maybe a few years

1:02or something like that.

1:03You could possibly skip this particular skill.

1:05Just look at the contents and see if it suits you.

1:08But I'm gonna start at the entry level

1:09for someone that has not really had

1:11a lot of experience with servers,

1:13or very often, as is the case,

1:15you might have some administrative experience with servers,

1:18but only in one narrow scope or one narrow area,

1:22maybe wherever your job aligns to.

1:25But you might be largely unaware of,

1:28or not educated in some of the other aspects of a server,

1:32some of the other roles that it can take and so forth.

1:34Okay, so that's where we're gonna be

1:35at least starting here.

1:37So what is a server?

1:38Well, as the name implies,

1:39it centrally serves other devices and resources.

1:43So here I've got a server,

1:45and it can be doing a lot of different things.

1:46It can be resolving names using something like DNS.

1:50It can be validating identities of your users,

1:55helping them to log on and stuff like that.

1:58It could have file shares on it.

2:01Okay, stuff like this as well.

2:03Various other kinds of services.

2:04I'm not gonna elaborate on all those right now.

2:06That's part of what the rest of the course is about.

2:08But it provides those resources for our users

2:11throughout the rest of the network.

2:13And they are usually well-connected.

2:15So they're usually wired by Ethernet

2:19to the rest of the network.

2:20So it would connect into, for example,

2:22a switch like we see right here.

2:25We don't have Ethernet these days.

2:27Anyway, this switch in turn

2:29then connects all of these other devices, okay?

2:33So this is kind of a juncture, a junction point, if you will,

2:37for allowing all of these devices

2:38potentially to communicate with one another

2:41or to communicate with the server.

2:43One thing that's always also,

2:45or most networks nowadays also have,

2:48is a Wi-Fi access point, also just known as an AP

2:52access point or a WAP or just the Wi-Fi.

2:56Anyway, so you've usually got at least one of those as well

2:59in most offices,

3:00which can then connect your wireless devices.

3:02And of course, most PCs as well as,

3:05couldn't find my phone for a minute,

3:07phones, tablets, all the rest of that,

3:09most devices nowadays are Wi-Fi capable.

3:13Servers usually are not depending upon the server

3:16because their usual expectation there

3:17is that they're gonna connect via Ethernet.

3:20You can make them wireless,

3:22but it's not generally considered as reliable

3:25as a wired connection,

3:27even though it's substantially better nowadays

3:30than it was in years past.

3:32Now, in addition, you may have other networks, okay?

3:36You very likely do in an organization of any size,

3:39practically, unless it's a very small office,

3:42home office with, I don't know,

3:43a dozen devices or something like that.

3:45Very often there will also be a router here, okay?

3:49And the router is very likely connecting

3:52two or more switches.

3:53So both of these switches are connected to the router.

3:57That way, if this device here needs to communicate with,

4:00I don't know, this server here,

4:01or one of these other workstations over here,

4:04it can transit through its switch through the router,

4:07which then connects to this other switch,

4:09and then can allow a connection to the remote destination.

4:12We're gonna be discussing in more detail

4:15a lot of these concepts elsewhere.

4:17This is just kind of introducing the whole thing,

4:20not gonna try to exhaust it all at once here.

4:21Also, the servers are normally always on.

4:25So your laptops, even your workstation, stuff like that,

4:29you know, if you go to lunch after a few minutes,

4:3115 minutes or whatever,

4:32they'll kind of go to sleep or whatever.

4:34They'll snooze.

4:35They'll go into sleep mode,

4:38is what very commonly it's called.

4:40And that's okay,

4:41because they're usually designed for a single user.

4:44If nobody's there, there's no sense in drawing more power

4:47to that device, just let it sleep for a while.

4:49Then you come back, you move the mouse, trackball,

4:52trackpad, press a key on the keyboard.

4:54Of course, we know that it then wakes up.

4:57Well, your servers, you don't normally want that to happen,

4:59because yes, if they did go to sleep,

5:02you could trigger something to wake them up.

5:05There's things called a magic packet, for example,

5:08that could be used.

5:09Normally users don't have those,

5:10but administrators could send a magic packet

5:12to wake up a server,

5:14or by some other use, it could wake up.

5:18But that usually takes a few seconds as well.

5:19And servers normally are,

5:21you need to keep them in a very timely,

5:23high-performing function.

5:25So you don't want them to waste,

5:27that's supposed to be a clock.

5:28You don't want them to waste even precious seconds

5:31becoming available.

5:32You want them always on and well-connected.

5:35Also, it's not necessary in every situation,

5:39but as a general practice,

5:41they're usually gonna be high-performing hardware.

5:43Why?

5:44Because on a workstation,

5:47they might only need four gigabytes

5:49just to install Windows,

5:50and that's of RAM, four gigs of RAM.

5:53I don't know, maybe one terabyte hard drive,

5:56basic video, that kind of stuff.

5:59Well, that's suitable for a single user

6:03that's using that workstation.

6:04For a server, I might have dozens or hundreds,

6:07but sometimes thousands of users

6:09all connected to it at once.

6:11That's not gonna be enough.

6:13It wildly varies depending upon

6:17the workload that you're putting on that server.

6:19If it's performing a very simple function,

6:20yeah, it might be able to do just fine

6:23with only four gigs of RAM,

6:25just enough storage to be able

6:26to install the operating system

6:28and run maybe one service or something like that.

6:31It just depends upon that role.

6:33But some servers are very heavily tasked

6:36and require terabytes of RAM

6:40and possibly terabytes of accessible storage as well.

6:44So again, just a generalization,

6:47but a lot of times you're gonna need more for a server.

6:50I'll be talking more about some of the general hardware

6:53that you might see in servers

6:54at a later point in the skill.

6:56And as I started to allude earlier,

6:58they're usually accessible to,

6:59in other words, devices can reach these servers

7:03from other servers.

7:05So this server, again, maybe through a router or whatever,

7:07can probably communicate with this server.

7:10Could be for a number of different reasons,

7:11for redundancy to make sure that if one server goes down,

7:14the other one's still available.

7:16We'll talk more about that later as well.

7:18It could be that they have an interdependency

7:19upon one another.

7:21Maybe one server issues certificates,

7:23which are digital certificates

7:25that this server needs to use or vice versa.

7:29Lots of other reasons why it could be needed.

7:31Also accessible to your users and devices.

7:34Devices have actually got, in a Windows environment,

7:37they actually have an account.

7:39So they're kind of considered in a certain way,

7:42a user when it comes to something like Active Directory.

7:45They still have to actually log on.

7:47We never see that happen.

7:48That happens before you get to the log on screen

7:51for the user, but they also do have to validate

7:53that they are who they say they are.

7:54Otherwise you can have some, you know,

7:56evil hacker dude here with a laptop

8:00and he's pretending to be one of your company devices

8:03when it's really not, okay?

8:05So we have to validate devices as well as users.

8:09Also, there could be apps on here.

8:12Now this could be in a number of different forms.

8:14Very often these days there are web apps.

8:17So there's an app on the server,

8:19but the user will access it

8:21through a web browser down here.

8:24Doesn't have to be that way.

8:26Could be a client piece of some kind down there

8:28that it installs and uses as well.

8:31But regardless, the point I'm making here is

8:33there are very often apps up here

8:35that the users need to be able to access.

8:37In fact, you're using one of those right now

8:40as you watch this video.

8:42We have an app that's exposed really as a webpage.

8:46Lots of other things you can put up there.

8:48Specialized functions might be a human resources app,

8:51a Salesforce type of a thing.

8:53Lots of other things you could be using up there.

8:55And then there's also cloud.

8:57So we'll get into this as well later on,

9:00but very often nowadays,

9:02we're not just in our own local environment here

9:05cut off from the rest of the world, you know,

9:08or from the rest of the evil internet out here

9:12and we're in our own little fiefdom here.

9:13Everything nowadays is internet connected.

9:17Very often, very few situations

9:20where we do not have an internet connection these days.

9:22A big part of that is also gonna be the cloud though,

9:25because this server may also interoperate

9:28with Azure in some form or another.

9:31And it didn't have to be Azure, you know,

9:34that's Microsoft's cloud solution.

9:36But Azure has a lot of things that these users might use,

9:38such as OneDrive.

9:41Which is a cloud-based storage solution,

9:43so that if I create a document on my Windows computer,

9:46and if we're using all Microsoft solutions,

9:48and you're gonna be using OneDrive,

9:50and that document gets sent almost immediately to OneDrive

9:56as a synchronized copy.

9:58So there's actually one copy on my local computer

10:00and another copy out there in the cloud on OneDrive.

10:04And there's both a personal edition of OneDrive

10:06as well as a corporate version.

10:07And again, we'll talk more about the cloud

10:09and all of that kind of thing a little bit later on.

10:11But my server here might be synchronizing

10:14something like user accounts that I have here on-premises

10:17with kind of a subset, if you will, of Azure called Entra ID.

10:23Boy, I'm making a mess of things.

10:24Running out of room.

10:25Entra ID.

10:27So that user account gets kind of duplicated

10:29out here into the cloud.

10:31That might allow us to take the same user account,

10:34and when the user's not in my local network,

10:37to authenticate against a cloud-based resource

10:40instead of having to connect to this server,

10:42which they might not have access to

10:44while they're out there on the internet somewhere.

10:46Business trip, airport, whatever.

10:48Again, lots more involved in that

10:51than what I can just cover in this introductory video.

10:53All right, that's a little bit of an introduction

10:55to the server world.

10:56In the next video, we'll continue the discussion

10:59of an overview of Windows Server.

0:01All right, let's continue our discussion of what a server is.

0:03And it's really going to start here with a continued overview

0:06of common operating systems on a server.

0:09So we're really focused mostly on Windows Server,

0:13mostly Server 2025, which at the time of this recording

0:17is the most recent version.

0:18But most of the ones that are predecessors to that

0:20are very similar in the Microsoft ecosystem.

0:23But there's also Linux.

0:25Now Linux is a little bit of a different animal

0:27and we're not going to explore that completely,

0:29but I'll show you just an example here if you want to see.

0:32So right here, for example,

0:33this is a Linux operating system

0:37working inside of a virtual machine.

0:39We'll talk more about that a little bit later on,

0:41but for right now,

0:42just understand that this is a flavor of Linux.

0:45There's a lot of different flavors out there.

0:47You might've heard of a lot of different ones.

0:49Red Hat, Ubuntu, those are very common.

0:53This one's Linux Mint, which is just my preference.

0:57Don't really have a justification for it.

0:58I just like it.

1:00Anyway, this really is installed at the current time

1:02as more or less a desktop operating system.

1:05So I could use this a lot

1:06like I would use Windows 10 or Windows 11.

1:09However, you can take a Linux desktop operating system

1:13and very often add services

1:15that kind of make it a server, if you will.

1:18So I could make this a file server, for example,

1:22and allow other resources to access the files

1:25on this computer.

1:27I don't really intend to show you a lot here.

1:29I just want to show you that this is a possibility as well.

1:31You could make it.

1:32Now, one operating system that would be more geared

1:35towards real server-ish kind of functions

1:39would probably be something else like Rail,

1:41which would be Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

1:44It's usually a little bit beefier

1:45in terms of server capabilities,

1:48but I could make this Linux Mint machine a server as well.

1:53Now here is probably what we're more likely to see

1:55in this particular course,

1:57because we're focused here on Windows Server 2025.

2:01There are various different editions of that.

2:04Mine is a Dent Data Center edition,

2:07and you can get this too if you want.

2:08This is a trial version or an evaluation version,

2:12and I've still got, I guess, 149 days

2:15according to what I see there.

2:16So initially, this will look a lot like Windows 11, right?

2:21In fact, apart from looking in the lower right corner there,

2:23you might not even know that you're on a server.

2:25It still has a start menu.

2:27It still has a lot of the stuff here,

2:28but it does not have all of the same things

2:32that a Windows 11 computer, for example, would have.

2:36For example, there's not gonna be Solitaire

2:37or other games on here, okay?

2:39Servers are much more serious than that.

2:42I have used a server as a desktop computer

2:45just because I'm kind of a geek,

2:47but otherwise, normally you don't use it for that.

2:49In fact, most servers can be installed

2:52without any kind of a UI like what you see here.

2:54There's no start menu, no desktop,

2:56none of that kind of stuff.

2:58And that's just to make them as slim

3:00and lightweight as possible.

3:03So they're very often installed without any desktop UI.

3:06Very often that's called a Windows Core server,

3:10a core installation.

3:12And all it's really gonna very often have

3:14is some kind of a terminal that you can administer it with.

3:17I'll talk more about that coming up here a little bit.

3:19So they're not usually there for personal entertainment

3:23or feely feels, okay?

3:25We don't really care what the wallpaper is

3:27if there even is any.

3:28And very often they're also unmanned.

3:32So a lot of servers that you'll administer,

3:35you might not even know exactly where it's located.

3:38So if it's in this rack here,

3:39you don't even know if the server you're administering

3:41is this server here or this one here or that one there,

3:44or if it's even in this rack at all.

3:46It might be on the other side of the data center somewhere.

3:49And it might even be in a different city.

3:52If you expand this out into the cloud

3:54where we also have Server 20, 25 servers

3:57or other versions as well,

3:59you might not even know which building it's in.

4:02In other words, which data center it's in.

4:03So for example, a lot of times I will administer

4:06Server 20, 25 servers in West US 3,

4:10which is an Azure area, a region.

4:14Those data centers are over that direction

4:16from where I live.

4:18I don't know, 20 or 30 miles away.

4:20I used to have a relative that worked there.

4:23I will never walk up to that server rack

4:26and be able to say that's my server

4:28and physically look at it,

4:30physically touch that server, anything like that.

4:32It's all gonna be done remotely.

4:34And in a way, it doesn't really matter

4:36if I can put hands on.

4:37Now, for an old time administrator like me,

4:39I've been doing this since, gosh, when?

4:42I guess the late 80s.

4:44So I've been doing this for a while.

4:45And in the past, administrators used to be very protective

4:49of their servers, both the physical server

4:51as well as the services that it offered.

4:54And we would say, that's my server.

4:55Don't anybody else touch it.

4:57We'd know exactly where it was located,

4:59very protective of it.

5:01But nowadays, I don't even know where my servers are.

5:04The desktop server that I showed you a moment ago,

5:06I know where that one is.

5:07That's on my own local machine right here.

5:09It's a virtualized machine, virtual machine.

5:12But in productivity and production environments,

5:14a lot of times you'll never even touch them or see them.

5:17And as I said before, they're usually unmanned.

5:20Now, for a lot of racks like this,

5:22I can't, this guy's in the way, so I can't show you.

5:24But there's often a little drawer that will slide out

5:28with a tiny little console on it

5:30that kind of looks like a laptop.

5:31And you can do some administration

5:33of the various devices or servers.

5:35Sometimes this is a lot of,

5:36got also got a lot of network equipment.

5:38It might have switches in there.

5:39It might be a router in there somewhere.

5:41But you can, a lot of times remote, not remotely,

5:44but you can a lot of times administer them

5:46from that little tray that slides out

5:48that has a little LCD screen on it.

5:50If you have access to the data center,

5:53many times nowadays we do not.

5:55And that's not just a Microsoft thing.

5:57That would be true if you have servers

5:58in Azure Web Services or AW, excuse me,

6:02what's called Amazon Web Services, also known as AWS,

6:07a lot of other cloud providers out there.

6:09Or you might have least space in a data center.

6:13Here in the Phoenix area where I live,

6:15we have lots of data centers over the past couple of years

6:19that have just sprung up out of nowhere

6:21and they're stealing all of our electricity.

6:23Anyway, that's another subject.

6:26But the reality is a lot of them are somewhat self-sustaining

6:29for the draw of electricity that they need.

6:32But anyway, you can lease space in a data center as well.

6:36In those locations, you could walk in there,

6:40install a rack, slide in a server,

6:43and then remotely administer it.

6:44You're probably not likely

6:46to visit that server very often though.

6:48You're probably gonna do it from your cubicle,

6:50possibly miles away.

6:52And that's why we can do that is because the fact

6:54that they can be remotely administered.

6:56So you can open up a terminal, for example.

6:59This is just a text-based UI.

7:02I'll show you an example.

7:03I don't have anything to connect to right now.

7:05So I might open up something like this

7:06and I could have PowerShell,

7:08which can make a remote connection,

7:09or I can connect to a normal Windows command prompt

7:14or Azure Cloud Shell, or I could use other products.

7:18And again, my goal is not to teach you all of the nuts

7:20and bolts of this right now,

7:22but I could do other things such as starting a new session.

7:25And very often we'll do that through SSH,

7:28which stands for Secure Shell.

7:31This encrypts and protects that communication

7:34that you have between your own local cubicle

7:37or wherever you are, your laptop or something,

7:39and that remote server over the internet usually.

7:42Doesn't have to be the internet.

7:44It could be a dedicated connection,

7:44but very often it's over the internet.

7:46Well, we don't want someone intercepting that

7:47and being able to decipher our communication between those.

7:51You can also do it using Remote Desktop Protocol,

7:54or RDP, or VNC.

7:56Both of these are solutions

7:57that allow you to see the desktop remotely.

8:00So it looks and feels

8:02as if you're actually on that server right there,

8:04but you don't have to be

8:05because it could be miles away,

8:07even thousands of miles away,

8:10and yet you can remotely administer it.

8:12And in a way, it kind of doesn't really matter

8:14that you can't reach out and touch that server physically.

8:17You can also do it by an MMC console.

8:19This is a Microsoft Management Console.

8:21Again, we'll get into a lot of this stuff later on.

8:23I can't exhaust it all right now,

8:25but this is a console that Microsoft built

8:27that you can connect to a remote machine

8:31in a different location, for example.

8:32Or it doesn't have to be a local location.

8:34It could be in your own building,

8:35but it could be just about anywhere

8:37that is reachable over a network.

8:39Or you could use a web app.

8:40Microsoft has really good solutions right now,

8:43such as over here on this,

8:44going back to the server right now,

8:46you can, there's also something included there already.

8:48If I go to the Start menu here,

8:50there's this thing down here called Windows Admin Center.

8:53That's kind of the direction that Microsoft's

8:55trying to get everybody to go in right now

8:57because it's a great way to make remote connections

9:00to your servers.

9:01And they did a pretty good job with that.

9:03And that's really essentially

9:05a web-based connectivity mechanism.

9:08And again, we'll talk more about

9:09some of these things as we go.

9:11Increasingly, our servers are in data centers,

9:14as I was mentioning earlier,

9:15and or in the cloud and not local.

9:18Used to be, you know,

9:20if you worked for a medium to larger organization,

9:22maybe tens of thousands,

9:23even a hundred thousand users, for example,

9:26you probably had your own data center.

9:28Might've been a dedicated floor or two or more

9:31that was in your building or near your building.

9:34You might have to skateboard over there

9:36or shuttle over there,

9:37but anyway, it would be your data center.

9:39And anything that was in there belonged to your company

9:42and you were in charge of it,

9:43or you were in charge at least of a portion of it.

9:46Very often, that's not the case anymore.

9:47First of all, that's massively expensive

9:50to build your own data center.

9:52Cost prohibitive in most situations now.

9:55So unless you already had one,

9:57or there was a business reason, justification,

10:00for it to have your own,

10:01usually we outsource that now.

10:03And usually we will lease space in a data center.

10:07You can roll in your own rack.

10:08A lot of times they come on wheels.

10:10It's just a rack kind of similar to what you see over here.

10:12And you can slide in racks of servers and storage

10:17and probably a backup power,

10:20maybe some networking equipment, all that stuff.

10:22Well, that would be yours to manage

10:24because you're leasing that space.

10:25And the company that you're leasing it from,

10:29they supply everything else.

10:30They supply the utilities, the electricity, for example.

10:34They're going to keep it a certain temperature

10:37so it's nice and cold in there.

10:38Usually they're very cool in there.

10:39I usually have to wear a beanie.

10:41They're just too cold for my bald head.

10:43Or you might just put it in the cloud again,

10:45like Azure, as I was mentioning earlier.

10:47But anyway, the point is that they are very often

10:50not local anymore.

10:52And gosh, I haven't put hands on a physical server

10:55for quite a while now,

10:56because it's always in either a data center

10:58or more likely a cloud for me right now.

11:00Usually I use Azure.

11:02There are very few, if any, applications installed.

11:07So again, it depends upon the purpose of that server.

11:08There are a lot of wild variances in this.

11:12So we might install an app

11:14because that's an app that will then connect to,

11:16I don't know, clients, connect to other servers.

11:19It's a necessary business reason for it.

11:22But we're usually very stingy

11:24about what we install on that.

11:26Why?

11:27Well, among other reasons,

11:28you have to have a business reason in the first place.

11:30But also the more apps you install,

11:33the more things that can go wrong.

11:34The more variables that you have to account for

11:37in a troubleshooting scenario.

11:39Is it this app that caused the problem?

11:41Is it a service that we installed that caused the problem?

11:44Did we install an application

11:46we don't really need to have

11:47for business reasons on this server?

11:49Or that app has retired.

11:51We don't really use it anymore.

11:52We forgot to uninstall it.

11:54And it left behind a service that's consuming resources

11:57or is potentially a point of attack.

11:59I'm getting off track here.

11:59I got to get back.

12:01So anyway, the point is there are very few,

12:03if any, applications that are installed on most of these.

12:06A lot of them will already have the services

12:09that they need available for you.

12:11And you don't need to install anything else.

12:12For example, with Windows Server 2025,

12:15it's already got capabilities there for DNS.

12:18And I'll explain what these are later on.

12:20DHCP, Active Directory,

12:23various types of remote desktop setups that we can do.

12:25All kinds of things like that, okay?

12:27So it's already got all of those things available.

12:30You have to kind of flip a switch and turn those on.

12:33But it's included in the bits with the operating system.

12:36We didn't download some app

12:37and then install it separately on a lot of these servers.

12:40Again, you can do it if it's justified,

12:42but we try to keep that limited as much as possible.

12:44And they usually have a very high uptime.

12:48So kind of the gold standard, for example,

12:50if you have a server in Azure,

12:52Azure guarantees 99.99% uptime.

12:57That's four nines.

12:58Four nines is what they refer to that as.

13:01And that's a good standard, okay?

13:03I think AWS also does that, Azure.

13:06I keep getting mixed up.

13:08Amazon, as well as Azure, does that.

13:11Some systems will guarantee 99.999% uptime,

13:16which accounts for about five minutes

13:18of unplanned downtime per year, okay?

13:22This is gonna be, again, known as five nines, all right?

13:26So the point is, whichever one there is,

13:28very high uptime availability.

13:31It's not like the average desktop user's PC

13:35that has to be rebooted

13:36because it crashed twice a week or something like that.

13:39Also, you're gonna see higher expenses, okay?

13:43Of course.

13:44These things are expensive.

13:45We'll see some hardware examples later on

13:48of how high these prices can go.

13:51But remember, these are not for personal use.

13:54They may be connecting hundreds or thousands of users

13:57all at once.

13:58And although, initially, they look very, very expensive,

14:02when you average that out or you cost scale that out

14:04to hundreds or thousands of users,

14:07they're all able to use that server for probably pennies.

14:10So per user or per service or whatever,

14:13it might actually be very inexpensive.

14:15All right, in the next video, we'll be taking a look,

14:18what am I looking at next?

14:20Server functions, the kinds of things

14:22a server is capable of doing for you.

0:00All right, so let's take a look here at some of the things

0:01that a server can be useful for.

0:03So one of the things you can do

0:05is you can install applications on it, right?

0:08Remember we said we want to minimize

0:09the number of applications that we install on a server,

0:12but that doesn't mean it doesn't have any

0:13if there's a legitimate business reason for it.

0:16What we want to do in many cases

0:18is instead of installing individual applications

0:22on each user's computer separately,

0:25what you can do is to install that application on a server

0:30and then just have multiple users connect to it.

0:32These days, past several years,

0:34very often they will make that connection through a web,

0:37that's not very visible, through a web browser, okay?

0:40So the application is surfaced using a web browser

0:44and that's how the users can very often access it.

0:47And so one of the applications that might be there

0:49would be, I don't know if you want to call it an application

0:51or a service as much, but on a Windows system,

0:54that could be IIS, I-I-S,

0:57which is their version of a web server, okay?

1:00This might be necessary to use another application

1:04that is hosted by IIS

1:08and then the user can connect to it over a browser.

1:11Another very frequently used item there

1:13would be something like a SQL server, okay?

1:16If you're not familiar with SQL,

1:17that stands for Structured Query Language,

1:20really it revolves around databases.

1:23So think about a customer service representative here,

1:26onboarding a new customer, for example.

1:28Well, she's going to have to have the person's name,

1:31maybe their address, phone number,

1:35it'll create a customer account number, customer number,

1:39all of that stuff.

1:39Well, that's going to get put somewhere, right?

1:41Do we want to store it on this user's laptop,

1:44which could get lost, stolen, damaged, crash, whatever?

1:48No, very often what you're probably going to do

1:50is connect again through a web browser, okay?

1:52A web browser here, which connects to SQL,

1:55which is on this server here.

1:57Okay, so SQL and the web browser

1:59might be on the same server,

2:00sometimes they're split up,

2:01that's a whole different strategy.

2:03Anyway, those are the kinds of things that we can do.

2:05And again, much of that will very often be surfaced

2:09through a web server.

2:11Another example of that would be,

2:13I've owned several businesses before and we still own some.

2:16And for the accounting, what I used to do

2:20is I would download accounting software for business.

2:23Probably the most common one

2:24for small to medium-sized businesses would be QuickBooks,

2:27okay?

2:27So I would install that, it was on a,

2:30back in the day it was on a DVD,

2:32and I would install it on my desktop computer actually,

2:35or a laptop.

2:36And later on, you could download it

2:38and then double-click the executable or the MSI file,

2:40and then again, install it locally.

2:42And then all of my data was also on this local computer.

2:46That's a pretty significant point of failure.

2:49Again, laptop gets lost, stolen, hard drive crashes,

2:52whatever, I could lose a lot there.

2:54Now, of course, there's other backup methods and all that,

2:56but barring that, I could lose a lot.

2:58In fact, I've got a very good friend of mine,

3:00I used to work for him,

3:02now he's an employee at Microsoft.

3:03But when I worked for him, we had QuickBooks.

3:06That was before they put it on the internet

3:08the way it is right now.

3:09And it was installed on a local server.

3:11Well, it was supposed to get backed up on a regular basis.

3:15We had an IT person there that was responsible for that.

3:18Turns out she backed it up once

3:20and never backed it up again.

3:21So when the drive crashed on that server,

3:24we lost it all, okay?

3:26And my friend spent,

3:28he was up several days in a row without any rest

3:31trying to recover his business.

3:33It was really a nightmare.

3:34More for him than for me, but I always felt for him.

3:37Anyway, now we don't really have that problem

3:40because when I had businesses before,

3:44we might install it.

3:45Now we have QuickBooks, but it's here in the cloud

3:48and it's Intuit, Intuit is the company that owns it.

3:50It's in Intuit's own systems, okay?

3:54So they have servers with QuickBooks on them.

3:57It's exposed to us through a webpage.

4:00And now we just connect to the webpage,

4:02which services QuickBooks and we access all of our data.

4:05All of my data is stored up here in the cloud.

4:08If my laptop crashes, I don't care.

4:11Well, I do, I don't want the laptop to crash,

4:13but I haven't lost anything in terms of my data.

4:16It was never stored on my local computer.

4:19Now for safekeeping, if I want to,

4:21I could download it to the computer

4:23and have all the data there,

4:24but I usually didn't even need to.

4:27So that's an example of how that could work.

4:29You can also use it for central management,

4:31for example, of devices.

4:33So on a Windows system, we would,

4:35this is changing names a lot of different times,

4:37but a lot of times it's called

4:38System Center Configuration Manager

4:41or just Configuration Manager or just System Center,

4:44or sometimes we just call it Config Man.

4:46No, that's not right, that's different.

4:47Oh, Configuration Manager.

4:49So a lot of those different things, but anyway,

4:52this is a product that Microsoft makes available to us

4:56that you can again, install on a server

4:59and it can help manage things like your devices

5:02and what they're capable of and all that kind of stuff.

5:04Nowadays, a lot of that for forward moving companies

5:08and future thinking companies

5:10has now been also been put into Microsoft's Azure Cloud here

5:14in something called Intune.

5:16And that again, is just another way

5:18to centrally manage devices.

5:21So I can come up with various rules

5:23in Intune or System Center,

5:24and I can say, oh, I don't know,

5:26you cannot make a connection to our network

5:28unless you have these security tests that you've passed,

5:32such as having the firewall turned on

5:33or something like that.

5:35Central management for your devices, also authentication.

5:38So going back to a local on-premises scenario,

5:42we would have something like Active Directory or AD.

5:46We'll talk more about that in details

5:48later on in this course,

5:50but that is what we use to store

5:53and record our users and our devices.

5:57Both have to be authenticated,

5:59so they have to be authenticated by Active Directory.

6:02And if they are, then it unlocks the desktop or whatever

6:04and the user can do their work and the device is available.

6:08That's where their identity is checked.

6:10Their username and password, username and password,

6:13it's not actually on the desktop or the laptop or whatever,

6:17it's actually in Active Directory.

6:19And when they enter in those credentials,

6:21it checks with Active Directory.

6:23There's also security that can be used,

6:26gosh, in so many different ways.

6:28One of the ways could be, for example,

6:30you could use it for, oh, like a checkpoint as a company

6:33that does intrusion detection systems

6:35and intrusion prevention systems.

6:37And so, I know there's a cloud right there,

6:39but I'm just going to ignore that.

6:40Let's pretend this is the internet right here.

6:43It can come into the server here

6:45and there's going to be network equipment

6:46involved and stuff like that.

6:47Well, it can check for the safety of that data coming in.

6:51Can also use it as a firewall, by the way,

6:54and it can filter out anything

6:55that we might not want to come in.

6:57Maybe something from a suspicious IP address

7:01or something like that.

7:01Or if we're using our intrusion detection system,

7:05then it can look for somebody

7:06that's out here on the internet.

7:08Maybe it's some evil hacker person.

7:09All evil hackers have hair, in my opinion.

7:12Anyway, this evil hacker person

7:13in trying to get on our network,

7:14a lot of times they'll do is repeated attempts

7:17at breaking authentication.

7:19Well, it can raise an alert to that and stop it.

7:22Okay, so that's another security method

7:23that could take place there.

7:24There's lots of different IDSs and IPSs, okay?

7:29That's just a start.

7:29There's a lot more than just that.

7:31Also for backup and recovery.

7:33Remember, we'll have data on here.

7:35You might have our SQL database,

7:37or if you're into it,

7:38you might have your users' QuickBooks files

7:41or any other data we have.

7:43It just entered general files, whatever else.

7:46Well, very often, those files and all that data

7:50is not really stored on the user's laptop or computer.

7:54Instead, it's very often stored on the server.

7:57So you need to have a backup and recovery mechanism

8:00that's tested every now and then

8:01to make sure that it can recover data

8:04in event of a data loss.

8:06Also, can be used for redundancy.

8:09So for example, a lot of times in a Windows environment,

8:12we'll have something called an active-passive relationship.

8:16So let's just call this,

8:17maybe this is our SQL database, okay?

8:19Where all of our customers are located

8:21and maybe we have online ordering

8:23and all that kind of stuff going on, right?

8:25So all of our records are stored here on the app.

8:29We're using the active server,

8:32which in turn is connected to storage

8:36in what we call a storage area network.

8:38That's usually a fiber-connected network

8:40with very, very fast throughput.

8:42And so the actual records are usually stored in a SAN,

8:46SAN fabric, out of which you can carve

8:48storage space for use, okay?

8:51The basic idea there is, in this situation,

8:53I don't wanna get into too many details,

8:55the data is not usually stored on the actual SQL server.

8:58The SQL server will receive that data

9:00that we enter in up here,

9:02but then it moves it down into our storage

9:07and that's where it's kept and available.

9:09Now, if this server goes down, there's a heartbeat.

9:12See if I can draw a heart.

9:14Probably better if it was red, but anyway,

9:15that could be interpreted as a heart or something else.

9:18Anyway, so then we have this passive server,

9:22which as soon as it detects

9:23that there's no longer a heartbeat,

9:24it immediately becomes active and continues service.

9:28The users might not have any clue

9:30that anything's gone wrong, okay?

9:32So that's the redundancy.

9:33That's clustering, by the way.

9:35The other kind of thing you could use there

9:36would be geographic.

9:38So maybe we are connected to Azure

9:40and maybe this is our nearest Azure point of presence,

9:45if you will, and everything's working fine until it's not.

9:48And then when it's not,

9:50we can go off to another Azure resource.

9:52The user doesn't have to figure this out,

9:53this all can happen automatically.

9:55And the resources are still available.

9:57Microsoft does a pretty good job

9:59synchronizing state information

10:01as well as data in between its data centers.

10:05You have to set it up for that,

10:06but that's just another possibility.

10:09AWS does a similar thing and so forth.

10:12Now, I will point out

10:14that many functions are moving to the cloud

10:17using AWS, using Azure, stuff like that, right?

10:20If that's the case, why do we need a course like this?

10:23Because even if your organization decided,

10:26you know what, we're gonna save some money

10:28and you can save a lot of money if you manage it right.

10:32We're gonna save money, quit building our own data centers,

10:34we're gonna shove everything into Azure,

10:37but you can't shove literally everything in there.

10:40Normally, there's still gonna be local servers

10:42that you build, manage, service.

10:45You can still put hands on them in a lot of places.

10:48So you still need to know

10:50and know what a server is, know how to manage that server.

10:53Plus, even if you aren't using,

10:55let's just say you were able to move everything to the cloud,

10:58you'll still have servers there.

10:59You'll still have Windows Server 20, 25 servers or whatever

11:02that you need to manage and administer.

0:00Now, let's take a look here at infrastructure.

0:02So when it comes to server roles, if you will,

0:06a lot of times we hear the term infrastructure.

0:08So an infrastructure server is usually the underlying

0:13or backend services that enable network usage,

0:17user authentication, devices, applications.

0:21It allows all of those things to function.

0:24Think about, for example, a house, all right?

0:27In your house or your apartment or your RV

0:30or whatever you're living in, you have electricity, right?

0:34That's supposed to be a lightning bolt,

0:35but anyway, you have electricity.

0:37Inside of your house, you have a refrigerator,

0:40you have air conditioning, you have a TV,

0:44all kinds of stuff, right?

0:45Are those three things that I just wrote there,

0:47are they electricity?

0:48No, but they depend upon electricity.

0:51This is the infrastructure.

0:53The electricity is the infrastructure

0:55that enables all of those devices.

0:57Similarly, infrastructure in a server context

1:01is what allows something else to happen.

1:04Let's take a look at a few examples.

1:05First of all, I've mentioned this before,

1:07so I won't dwell on this long,

1:08but authentication server, Active Directory,

1:12certificate services.

1:14So we may get into this a little bit later on,

1:16but a certificate is a very important security measure.

1:20You're using one right now.

1:22You may not have realized it,

1:23but when you connect to a secure website like ours,

1:27there's a security that authenticates

1:29that we are really who we say we are.

1:31We're, you know, CBT Nuggets, or in this case,

1:33really, Adept is our product

1:35that we use to deliver our teaching content.

1:37It also can encrypt the traffic.

1:40So if you're using something like Gmail,

1:42well, because of Google's certificates,

1:45it's able to encrypt your transactions back and forth

1:49between your local computer,

1:51where you're gonna, say, put together an email

1:54and send it, and Gmail itself, okay?

1:56So it's gonna be secured that way.

1:58Certificates are very useful for that,

1:59as well as many other things,

2:01code signing, lots of other stuff.

2:03Anyway, DNS.

2:05DNS is what allows you to go to your website

2:08and type in cbtnuggets.com

2:11and have it automatically go to our website, right?

2:14What is CBT Nuggets IP address?

2:17I don't know.

2:18I work here.

2:19I've worked here for years.

2:19I still don't even know it.

2:21I don't have to.

2:21Why?

2:22Because if I type in the name in my browser,

2:24DNS will take the name, and it will look it up,

2:28and it will identify the IP address.

2:31I'll just make something up here,

2:32like 179.25.4.3, something like that.

2:35And then what really happens is your browser

2:38is gonna connect to this IP address, not the name,

2:42even though it shows the name in the browser, okay?

2:45So that's what DNS does for us.

2:46DHCP will issue IP addresses to us, or to your devices.

2:52So for example, even on a small home office network,

2:55like my own right here where I'm working from home today,

2:58my phone, if it was turned off and I turned it on,

3:01it would connect to my local DHCP server,

3:04which in this case is just for my ISP.

3:05It's integrated into my Wi-Fi router.

3:10Well, it issues an IP address to me.

3:13In addition to that IP address,

3:15it also identifies which router I'm supposed to use,

3:18which I've only got one,

3:19but which one I'm supposed to use,

3:21whatever else, which DNS servers I'm supposed to use,

3:24all that kind of stuff.

3:25So it's your IP configuration is what DHCP is used for.

3:29There's also a network policy server.

3:31This is very useful for things like other network services,

3:34like VPN access, okay?

3:37You can't just set up a VPN server and say,

3:39all right, whoever wants to connect,

3:40you're welcome to connect, not in a corporation anyway.

3:43There has to be certain rules in place

3:45to allow people to connect or devices to connect

3:48under certain conditions.

3:50That's what NPS is going to do.

3:51Files and data.

3:52We've got to put our data somewhere, right?

3:54We don't want to just keep it on our local machine.

3:56It's okay to put it there, but anything that's important,

3:59a lot of times that's going to be put on

4:01an infrastructure server somewhere.

4:03So it could be in form of a database.

4:05It could be in form of the user's files, whatever else.

4:09It's going to store that kind of information.

4:11Also, maybe a print server.

4:13So you can't just take a USB cable

4:16and buy a printer for every single user

4:19in every single cubicle, right?

4:21So normally what we do is not connect those printers

4:23by a USB cable.

4:25Normally they're IP connected printers.

4:28They're in some kind of a print room

4:30and anybody that prints out a print job,

4:32they'll have to get up out of their cubicle,

4:34go to wherever the printer is, pick up their print job,

4:37return to their cubicle.

4:39Well, a lot of times that's handled by a print server.

4:42So it can keep the jobs organized.

4:44So it can restart a queue if needed.

4:46So it can prioritize print jobs, all kinds of things.

4:49There's also virtualization.

4:50This is what I was showing you earlier.

4:52Let me show it to you right here, right?

4:55This Windows Server 25 server, that's virtualized.

4:58What I'm actually recording on right now

5:02is just a very high powered PC.

5:04I could use it as a server.

5:06As it is, it would stand out

5:07as a really great gaming server.

5:09I don't game anymore since my son started beating me

5:11at gaming when he was like, I don't know, 17 or 18.

5:15Who am I kidding?

5:17He was in first grade when he started beating me at gaming.

5:19But anyway, it would be a great gaming server

5:22or a gaming platform

5:24because it's full of hardware of all different kinds.

5:26Lots of memory, lots of storage,

5:28fast storage, SSDs, all this stuff.

5:30Well, because of its hardware capabilities,

5:33it's got a lot of capability there.

5:35I can also install,

5:37in addition to my Windows 11 operating system,

5:39which hosts the entire operating system,

5:42I can also install something like VMware Workstation,

5:45which is what I'm working with here.

5:47That's a product.

5:48And inside of that, I can install other operating systems.

5:51So this is a Windows server

5:52that's on my single computer right now.

5:55This is my Linux machine, which is also installed there.

5:58I can also, I haven't spun them up,

6:00but I've also got a couple of other Windows 11 computers.

6:03And I think I have an Ubuntu computer somewhere.

6:05That's virtualization, where we're taking one computer

6:09and we're installing multiple operating systems on it.

6:13Each operating system thinks that

6:15it has its own dedicated computer.

6:17It really doesn't.

6:18It's sharing it with those other operating systems.

6:21There's also other things like WSUS,

6:23which is Windows Server Update Services.

6:25And this is how updates can get passed out.

6:28This is starting to get phased out a little bit.

6:29A lot of organizations are still using it,

6:31but a lot of that's being transitioned to the cloud now

6:33as well, using Azure.

6:35But using something like WSUS,

6:37we can schedule when we want our updates

6:40to go out to our client computers.

6:42That might give us time to test the updates first,

6:45set up a staging forum, all that kind of stuff.

6:47And remote desktop services.

6:50So let's just imagine here that we have,

6:54oh, one department that is a very, very low budget.

6:59We just refuse to buy them new computers.

7:02It worked out great when they were all running Windows 7

7:05years and years ago, but now they're underpowered.

7:08Users are embarrassed to say they even use those computers,

7:12but we're too cheap to buy them new ones, right?

7:15So what can we do?

7:15Well, here is my user's computer here.

7:18Maybe there's another one here.

7:19There's another user's computer here.

7:22They're all low cost computers that cannot support

7:25a new installation of Windows 11.

7:26What we can do though, is install Windows 11

7:29in a certain form over here, at least,

7:31using something called remote desktop services.

7:33We can then, and by the way, that's a little oversimplified,

7:37but what it does is there are methods you can do

7:41to allow each one of these desktop computers,

7:43maybe they're all running Windows 7 right now or something,

7:45or some other operating system, as long as as a browser,

7:50it can also connect to an RDS server over here

7:53and deliver a fresh Windows 11 desktop.

7:57Put W11 for Windows 11.

8:00I don't know why I put a third one there.

8:03These Windows 11 desktops, each one of these computers,

8:06they actually have Windows 7 installed,

8:08but on the screen, it shows up as Windows 11,

8:11and they can operate it here

8:13as it's being delivered from this server.

8:16So those are a few of the infrastructure roles.

8:18There's more, but these are some of the more common ones

8:21that you might see out there.