Is Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 a good way to learn the AD?

Since almost every job posting I see mentions AD in the job qualifications, I need to learn more about the AD? Would downloading the evaluation trial of Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 do the trick or would I be better off with Windows Server 2012? At this point, I am really only interested in the AD.

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Comments

NetworkNewb

It can only be installed on a Server

srabiee

Wait, I'm confused. Are these job postings specifically asking for ADFS experience, or just AD in general?

tjb122982

srabiee wrote: »

Wait, I'm confused. Are these job postings specifically asking for ADFS experience, or just AD in general?

Just AD. Sorry for the confusion.

srabiee

Ok that makes more sense. If you want to learn AD, the best way to go about it is to create a Server 2012 R2 virtual machine and configure a domain. Then practice configuring DHCP, DNS, GPOs, user accounts, security groups, etc, and add domain members (additional virtual machines) as necessary. Oracle VM VirtualBox is free I believe. Or you could do it in Windows 8 or Windows 10 Hyper-V.

If you want something to guide you along the process, I highly recommend the Sybex book Mastering Server 2012 R2. It's like 1600 pages in length, extremely comprehensive, and easy to read through (plenty of screen shots and diagrams).

Amazon.com: Mastering Windows Server 2012 R2 (9781118289426): Mark Minasi, Kevin Greene, Christian Booth, Robert Butler, John McCabe, Robert Panek, Michael Rice, Stefan Roth: Books

CBTNuggets and Pluralsite also offer instructor-lead video-based training, if you learn better that way.