Free online courseActive Directory

Course Description

Build job-ready Windows Server administration skills by learning how Active Directory works in real networks, from the first domain controller to the policies that keep organizations secure and consistent. In this free online course, you will move beyond basic concepts and develop the confidence to design, deploy, and manage directory services that scale across users, devices, and sites. Whether you are aiming for a help desk-to-sysadmin jump, supporting hybrid environments, or strengthening your server fundamentals, Active Directory remains a core technology behind identity, access, and configuration management in many companies.

You will explore what makes domains, forests, and trusts essential for centralized control, and how functional levels and upgrade paths influence what your environment can do. The course connects the dots between the directory database, authentication and directory access protocols, and the role of services like the Global Catalog. You will also learn why time synchronization matters in a domain, how the operational master roles support stable operations, and what good placement and recovery decisions look like when something goes wrong.

Administration skills are reinforced through practical decision-making: creating and managing accounts, computer objects, and groups, using role-based strategies such as AGDLP/AGUDLP, delegating control safely, and working with OUs to keep administration clean and scalable. You will gain familiarity with essential tooling, from RSAT snap-ins to command-line utilities and PowerShell, so you can automate routine tasks and troubleshoot faster.

A major focus is Group Policy, the mechanism that enforces configuration at scale. You will understand processing order, enforcement, blocking, filtering, loopback behavior, and preferences, and how replication and troubleshooting tools help you verify what actually applied. Finally, the course emphasizes security-minded administration: auditing concepts, security templates, password policies including fine-grained controls, and techniques for controlling local group membership and application execution. By the end, you will be better prepared to maintain a healthier directory, reduce misconfigurations, and support reliable access across your organization.