Case Study: Fourth Coffee

Overview
Fourth Coffee is company that specializes in the retail sale of packaged coffee. The Company has more than 500 retails outlets throughout the United States.

Physical Location
The Company's main office is located in Atlanta. The Company has six branch offices in the following locations:

• Boston 
  
• Chicago 
  
• Dallas 
  
• Denver 
  
• Los-Angeles 
  
• Seattle 
  

Each Branch office manages at least 60 retail outlets.

Planned Changes
The company plans to upgrade the network to make provision for future expansion of the company product line. This will be the first upgrade in six years.

Business Processes
The Atlanta office manages the six branch offices, as well as the retail outlets in the Atlanta area. The branch offices manage the retail outlets in their respective cities and regions. Some of the very large retail outlets have managers who are responsible for daily reporting. Each of those managers has a desktop computer for the purpose of creating reports.

A single group of network administrators, located in the Atlanta office, controls all network resources and access. Two employees per branch office have been trained to assist the administrative group by performing tasks from the branch office whenever necessary.

In each branch office a point-of-sale application, named the retail outlet employees of sale application, is installed on servers that run Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition. The Retail outlet employees currently do not have access to any other applications.

Employees in the Atlanta office and the branch offices work between the hours of 8:00 A.M and 5:00 P.M, Monday through Friday. The network administrators are required to work on weekends to support the retail outlets. Employees in the retail outlets work in two shifts between the hours of 6:00 A.M and 11.00 P.M.

Infrastructure
Directory Services

The network consists of a single Windows NT 4.0 Domain named Fourth coffee. One PDC and Three BDC’s are located in the Atlanta Office.

Each branch office has a BDC. The Domain Controllers are not used for any other network service. Each group has been named for the function of the Group. For example, the group name of the users in the finance department of the Atlanta office is Atlanta Finance Users.

Network Infrastructure
The network connections between the Atlanta office and the branch offices are shown in the Existing Network Infrastructure exhibit

The Atlanta office and the branch offices have 100-Mbps Ethernet networks.

Each retail outlet connects to the associated branch office by using a fractional T1 line with a committed rate of 256 kbps or greater.

All WAN links are reliable. There is an agreement between Fourth Coffee and its telecommunications provider to have any WAN failure resolved within one hour. The amount of bandwidth currently seems to be sufficient during business hours.

The Atlanta office and the branch offices have servers running Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. The number of servers per office is based on the number of retail outlets that connect to the Atlanta office or branch offices, and the number of terminals at the retail outlets. The distribution of servers is shown in the following table.

Only one of the terminal servers in Atlanta, running Windows NT Server 4.0, is dedicated to the finance department.

The other six terminal servers are available to be used by the retails outlets. No other servers or
operating systems are in use. All company software has been successfully tested on computers that run Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Professional.

The Company's existing hardware is shown in the following table.


Problem Statements
The following business problems must be considered:

• Employees in the branch offices often log on to install software by using local computer accounts rather than domain accounts.
• IP addresses are configured manually. This leads to incorrectly configured or duplicate addresses on the network.
• Employees in the retail outlets have been reporting that network performance is slow.
  
• Employees with desktop computers do not want to lose their installed application, data and profiles during the changeover.

Executives
Chief Executive Officer
Fourth Coffee’s Expansion will occur as a phased process over the next three years, and we need to use some of our accumulated profits to achieve this.

A new company policy must be enforced to ensure that all company employees have access to similar network services when they are at work.

A market survey has shown that we need to establish a web presence to remain competitive. We need to provide information about what we do, where we are located and what our business hours are.

Chief Information Officer
The existing network was designed and implemented almost six years ago. Only minor changes have taken place since that time, the only thing that has changed is an upgrade to our WAN links last year. This upgrade did not solve the performance problems experienced by the retail outlets. It has since been established that the performance problems are related to hardware.

With the changes in our product line, we anticipate a growth in the number of customers. This ensures that terminals must be upgraded to provide for the increased connection to our servers from the retail outlets. We do not expect to add a vast number of terminals.

Substantial funds are available for this project. We hope to once again have a network that will last six years without major changes.

Network Administrator
We have noticed in System Monitor that most servers are running high processor and memory
utilization. We currently instruct the retail outlets on which terminal server to connect to, to achieve manual load balancing.

The individual users in the retail outlets must have access to personal data in the new environment. We currently do not have any DNS servers or Internet access available.

Even though I am a newly appointed network administrator, I found that the current management of our groups is incorrect. We use only local groups for the assignment of permissions. This is done by using groups that contain all the users located in the branch offices. Sometimes we may be more specific and focus on the function of the group within the office. Users can also be managed very easily, because we know that almost all of the passwords are "password". Only a few users change their passwords. Complex passwords need to be implemented.

The users at the retail outlets sometimes leave the terminal connected to the application for weeks without disconnecting. This results in failed backups of the application data. All of the users in the branch offices also leave their computers on for long periods of time.

We plan to implement a naming strategy that will identify users by first name, followed by the first character of their surname. Group names will indicate the department, as well as "GG" for global groups or "UG" for universal groups. Domain local groups will be identified by the type of access they will receive.

Retail Manager
We have noticed that the network is gradually becoming slower. No one in the retail outlets has access to e-mail and we do not have Internet access.

All employees in our retail outlet use the same username and password to connect to the terminal server. As a result, we do not have any privacy and cannot even have our own desktop background. Employees in the branch offices have very nice games and other software on their computers that we are not able to access.

Business Requirements
Business Drivers
The following business requirements must be considered:

• A Web site, named www.fourthcoffee.com, must be established to enable customers to search for the retail outlet nearest to them.
• An online ordering system must be established, which will allow customers to order company merchandise online.

Organizational Goals
The following organizational requirements must be considered:

• Retail outlets will be expanded over the next three years to provide seating and to allow for increased business. Future expansion might include providing customers with Internet access while they are having their coffee in the store.
• A manager will be appointed in each retail outlet with the task of improving customer service. The manager’s desktop computer will be used by other staff members to access the Internet and their e-mail by using their own usernames and passwords.

Security
The following security requirements must be considered:

• All security settings must be equal to or more restrictive than the default Windows Server 2003 settings.
• As a part of these requirements, all users must be forced to change their passwords at least once a month.
• Users with desktop computers should no longer be allowed to log on to the local computer as an administrator.
• The duration of logon hours must be strictly enforced.
  
• Users must not be allowed to shutdown the terminal servers.
  

Technical Requirements
Active Directory
The following active directory requirements must be considered:

• The Active Directory design must specify how the management of user and group permissions will be established and maintained.
• The new design must overcome the existing performance issues and also provide all employees with e-mail and Internet access. Employees in the retail outlets will be allowed to use these services only while they are on their lunch or coffee breaks. Employees will be able to use only their own user accounts for network access.
• The design must also facilitate the use of Group Policy to control all user accounts within a branch office. Group Policy settings for users in the branch offices must be different from the Group Policy settings for users in the retail outlets.
• User accounts for users in the finance department must be managed separately.
  

Network Infrastructure
The following network infrastructure requirements must be considered:

• A new T1 WAN link from the Atlanta office to the ISP will be installed.
  
• All server computers must have Windows Server 2003 installed. All desktop computers must have Windows XP professional installed. This must be achieved as quickly as possible.
• All terminal servers in a single office must be configured to use Network Load Balancing. All users must use roaming profiles to ensure that they have a consistent desktop appearance and access to applications. Terminal server user profiles must be stored on a network shared folder. Redundancy for all other servers is required.

Fourth Coffee (11 Questions)

QUESTION NO: 1
You are designing a strategy for configuring a newly installed Windows Server 2003 computer to meet the Active Directory DNS requirements. How should you configure the computer?

A. As a caching-only DNS servers
B. As the primary DNS server for the fourthcoffee.com DNS zone
C. With a stub zone fo the fourthcoffee.com DNS zone hosted by the ISP
D. As a secondary DNS server for the fourthcoffee.com DNS zone hosted by the ISP

QUESTION NO: 2
You are designing the forest and domain structure to meet the business and technical requirements. Which structure should you use?

A. A single forest with one tree, and one domain
B. A single forest with one tree two domain
C. A single forest with two trees, each with a single domain
D. Two forests, each with a single tree and a single domain
E. Two forests, each with two trees, with a single domain in each tree.

QUESTION NO: 3
You are designing a group management strategy for users in the finance department. You need toidentify the appropriate changes that need to be made to the current group management strategy. You want to accomplish this goal by using the minimum number of groups. What should you do?

A. Add the finance users to the financeData group to which the necessary permissions have been assigned.
B. Add the finance users to the financeGG group to which the necessary permissions have been assigned.
C. Add the finance users to the financeGG group. Then add the financeGG group to the financeData group
to which the necessary permissions have been assigned.
D. Add the finance users to the financeGG group. Add the financeGG group to the financeUG group to the financeDat group to which the necessary permissions have been assigned.

QUESTION NO: 4
You are designing a strategy of enforce the corporate security policy. Which action or actions should you perform? (Choose all that apply.)

A. Configure a password policy that requires strong passwords
B. Configure a password policy that requires all users to change their passwords once a month.
C. Allow users in the branch offices to log on between the hours of 8:00 A.M and 5:00 P.M., Monday through Friday.
D. Allow users in the retail outlets to log on between the hours of 6:00 A.M and 11:00 P.M., daily.
E. Enable a policy that forces users to log off when their logon hours expire.

QUESTION NO: 5
You are designing a migration strategy to meet the business and technical requirements. What should you do?

A. Upgrade the fourthcoffee BDC to Windows Server 2003. Then upgrade the PDC to Windows Server 2003
B. Upgrade an existing domain controller to Windows Server 2003. Establish a two-way trust relationship with the fourthcoffee domain.
C. Install and configure a new Windows NT 4.0 BDC. Promote the BDC to a PDC. Then upgrade the PDC to Windows Server 2003
D. Create a new Windows 2000 Server Active Directory domain. Establish a two-way trust relationship with the fourthcoffee domain. Use the Active Directory Migration Tool (ADMT) to migrate all user and computer accounts.

QUESTION NO: 6
You are designing for implementing Group Policy objects (GPOs) to meet the business and technical requirement. What should you do?

A. Create one new GPO to enforce software restriction policies. Link this GPO to the domain.
B. Create one new GPO to enforce software restriction policies. Link this GPO to the appropriate
organizational unit (OU).

C. Create one new GPO to enforce software restriction policies. Link this GPO to all organizational units (OUs).
D. Create new GPOs to match the number of organizational units (OUs).configure these GPOs to enforce software restriction policies. Link this GPO to its respective OU.

QUESTION NO: 7 

You are designing a DNS name resolution strategy to allow all users access to internal and external web sites. What should you do? 

A.  Allow zone transfers to any DNS server. 

B.  Create a new stub zone for the DNS zone on the DNS server. 

C.  Configure the DNS server to forward all unanswered queries to a DNS server located at the ISP 

D.  Add the DNS server located at the ISP to the list of name servers for the fourthcoffee.com DNS zone 

QUESTION NO: 8 

You are designing a strategy to assign the IP addresses to meet the business and technical requirement. 

Which two actions should you perform? (Each correct answer presents part of the solution. choose two) 

A.  Install and Configure one DHCP server in Atlanta and one DHCP server in each branch office. 

B.  Install and Configure two DHCP servers in Atlanta and two DHCP servers in each branch office. 

C.  Create one scope on each DHCP server. Specify one DHCP server to always update DNS records. Configure the scope to assign half of the IP addresses available to each office. 

D.  Create two scopes on each DHCP server. Specify one DHCP server to update DNS records only for client computers that request it. Specify a second DHCP server to never update DNS records. 

QUESTION NO: 9 

You are designing a name resolution strategy for the retail outlets to ensure that the existing bandwidth is used efficiently. Which three actions should you perform? (Each correct answer presents part of the solution. Choose three.) 

A. Configure the DNS server service on the terminal servers as caching-only servers. 

B. Configure multiple sites to have site links and set up a specific replication schedule. 

C. Configure the default site to have the subnets of Atlanta and the branch offices. 

D. Create a new DNS zone and configure zone transfers to name servers only. 

E. Create an application partition to be used for DNS 

F. Specify the scope of replication to be used for DNS 

QUESTION NO: 10 

You are designing a strategy for installing Windows server 2003 on the new domain controllers. Which method should you use? 

A. Unattended installation 

B. Remote Installation Services (RIS) 

C. Automated Deployment Services (ADS) 

D. Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 

QUESTION NO: 11 

You are designing a strategy to ensure that all employees have Internet access. For each branch office, what should you do? 

A. Configure a DNS server to function as caching-only servers 

B. Configure Internet Connection sharing on terminal servers. 

C. Install and configure an Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server Computer 

D. Install and configure a server running Routing and Remote Acess to function as a VPN server