The Time is Near

I have the 291 set for Thursday (2-26). I feel positive in lieu of the horror stories I read about. I will post if I become a MCSA or not.

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Maagtastic

Good Luck! Confidence is key. You can do it!

Big Jizay

Maagtastic is right. Go into the exam with confidence, and you should be fine. When I take tests, I score the highest when I don't second guess on my answers. Good luck on the exam. Slay that beast!!

NetAdmin2436

Good luck!

bencairney

Good luck.

ElwoodBlues

with a 654. I felt like I knew the majority of the answers. I guess I missed the passing score by 1 or 2 questions.

Slowhand

It's a tough exam. Use this as your "practice-run", study up on those areas that your exam report showed as being weaker, then do an all-around review and go back to slay that Beast.

Good luck!

motogpman

Sorry to hear! I am sure you will slay it next time. At least you know what areas to hit harder on! Keep us updated!

ElwoodBlues

I did the best in RRAS; unlike my test preps. Oh well.

Is 5 days too quick to retake it if I plan on studying daily?

neathneathneath

ElwoodBlues wrote: »

I did the best in RRAS; unlike my test preps. Oh well.

Is 5 days too quick to retake it if I plan on studying daily?

I've rebooked my exam for 7 weeks, so I think 5 days may be a bit optimistic unless you're confident that you know your onions. All the best

NetAdmin2436

Bummer, you were so close. Well, you seen the test and may come across a few of the same questions next time. Whatever it was on the test that you weren't sure on, study that. How did you do on the DNS/DHCP stuff? That's a majority of the test so I'd take another look at that if that's where you struggled.

Good luck!

ElwoodBlues

I am going thru everything I studied again. All the videos, labs, practice tests, and I even set up a lab in my office. I did miss some simple stuff and I am studying up more on DNS; in which I did the worst. My biggest issues was the differences between Stub and Forwarder.

I did schedule it for Wednesday, 2-4-09. This time I am not going back and changing answers.

Big Jizay

ElwoodBlues wrote: »

I am going thru everything I studied again. All the videos, labs, practice tests, and I even set up a lab in my office. I did miss some simple stuff and I am studying up more on DNS; in which I did the worst. My biggest issues was the differences between Stub and Forwarder.

I did schedule it for Wednesday, 2-4-09. This time I am not going back and changing answers.

I'm having a similar issue with Stub vs. Forwarder. I know the differences between the two as far as definition, but I don't know when it's best to apply one vs. the other

??:. To be most specific, Stub vs. Conditional Forwarder.

dynamik

Contrasting stub zones and conditional forwarders: Domain Name System(DNS)

Big Jizay

dynamik wrote: »

Contrasting stub zones and conditional forwarders: Domain Name System(DNS)

Thanks Dynamic!! I've been struggling with this for quite some time now. Now it's crystal clear!

ElwoodBlues

dynamik wrote: »

Contrasting stub zones and conditional forwarders: Domain Name System(DNS)

Dynamik,

Thanks for the link. However I find this material confusing.

Under your link is says that forwards are used for company mergers.

Conditional forwarders
In situations where you want DNS clients in separate networks to resolve each others' names without having to query DNS servers on the Internet, such as in the case of a company merger, you should configure the DNS servers in each network to forward queries for names in the other network.

Then under "Understanding Stub Zones" at the bottom of your link; it say the same thing about sutb zones.

Understanding stub zones
A stub zone is a copy of a zone that contains only those resource records necessary to identify the authoritative Domain Name System (DNS) servers for that zone. A stub zone is used to resolve names between separate DNS namespaces. This type of resolution may be necessary when a corporate merger requires that the DNS servers for two separate DNS namespaces resolve names for clients in both namespaces.

So which do you configure for a corporate merger?

Big Jizay

ElwoodBlues wrote: »

Dynamik,

Thanks for the link. However I find this material confusing.

Under your link is says that forwards are used for company mergers.

Conditional forwarders
In situations where you want DNS clients in separate networks to resolve each others' names without having to query DNS servers on the Internet, such as in the case of a company merger, you should configure the DNS servers in each network to forward queries for names in the other network.

Then under "Understanding Stub Zones" at the bottom of your link; it say the same thing about sutb zones.

Understanding stub zones
A stub zone is a copy of a zone that contains only those resource records necessary to identify the authoritative Domain Name System (DNS) servers for that zone. A stub zone is used to resolve names between separate DNS namespaces. This type of resolution may be necessary when a corporate merger requires that the DNS servers for two separate DNS namespaces resolve names for clients in both namespaces.

So which do you configure for a corporate merger?

My understanding is that you should use Conditional Forwarding for mergers. When you have two zones that are not parent/child zones, you implement Conditional Forwarding on a server in the network to forward queries for the other zone to a specfic server in that zone. For instance, when zones have dissimilar names, like if Microsoft.com and Unix.com merged together.

To my knowledge, stub zones are used in a parent/child zone enviroment. A stub zone is usually implemented on the primary zone server to let the server know what servers are authorative for the child zones. For example, microsoft.com and help.microsoft.com.

dynamik

I would focus on the fact that stub zones will update automatically while conditional forwarders must be manually configured. There's not always an obvious choice for the best to use; sometimes it really won't matter.

motogpman

If it is my understanding as well, Stub's don't get complete zone transfers, only the DNS server entries. Someone one please correct me if I am wrong.

dynamik

That's correct, but conditional forwarders operate like that as well since they only have the name servers that you enter.

ElwoodBlues

I guess the big key will be when they emphasize "Active Directory Integrated" or "single forest"; indicating they are looking for stub zones?

undomiel

The big thing you would want to look for when figuring out whether to use stub zones or not is if there is any mention of name servers changing frequently in a zone and/or without notification. It's as dynamik said, stub zones keep the list of name servers up to date automatically while conditional forwarders have to be manually updated. AD integrated or single forest have nothing to do with it.

ElwoodBlues

undomiel wrote: »

The big thing you would want to look for when figuring out whether to use stub zones or not is if there is any mention of name servers changing frequently in a zone and/or without notification. It's as dynamik said, stub zones keep the list of name servers up to date automatically while conditional forwarders have to be manually updated. AD integrated or single forest have nothing to do with it.

If I select my Internal DNS server to use a forwarder for all domains that are not locally defined and tell it "do not use recursion" for this server, it will not ever attempt to resolve dns querys using it's own root hints? Even if the fordarwer is unavailable?

Thanks

undomiel

Yes, you are correct.

Configure a DNS server to use forwarders: Domain Name System(DNS)

If you want the DNS server to only use forwarders and not attempt any further recursion if the forwarders fail, select the Do not use recursion for this domain check box.

ElwoodBlues

I took the test again this morning with the Second Shot and I passed with an 826. I felt just a little more positive during this test than the last (and had much better results). The information and contributions from everyone is greatly appreciated.

undomiel

Congratulations on your pass! I'm glad we could help a bit. 293 up next?

neathneathneath

ElwoodBlues wrote: »

I took the test again this morning with the Second Shot and I passed with an 826. I felt just a little more positive during this test than the last (and had much better results). The information and contributions from everyone is greatly appreciated.

Excellent news, well done

dynamik

Congrats!

ElwoodBlues

undomiel wrote: »

Congratulations on your pass! I'm glad we could help a bit. 293 up next?

Yep, starting on 293 tomorrow. I assume the 293 is the next logical choice since I have this 291 semi fresh in my memory.

NetAdmin2436

Congrats on your pass!

ElwoodBlues wrote: »

Yep, starting on 293 tomorrow. I assume the 293 is the next logical choice since I have this 291 semi fresh in my memory.

Yep, that's what I would do since there is some overlap with 291.