System administrator essential Ten Windows Server Tools (1)

For many years, Microsoft has quietly provided us with a large number of server management tools, tools, and troublesome things. Which tool is the best? This problem may have been entangled in the minds of many system administrators. This article lists my 10 favorite Windows server management tools, which may just solve the knot in your heart.
1, System Center Capacity Planner

You may be wondering why I started with a tool that Microsoft has stopped updating, because I found System Center Capacity Planner to be so outstanding. I would like to mention it anyway. If you are not familiar with this tool, then I will tell you that it is a tool that can budget server workloads. According to Microsoft, System Center Capacity Planner has been replaced by System Center Configuration Manager Designer. However, although it has been replaced by other tools, it can still be downloaded from TechNet and other third-party websites. The System Center Capacity Planner running interface is shown below.

Figure 1 will never fade away System Center Capacity Planner

System Center Capacity Planner Official Download: http: //technet.microsoft.com/en-us/Systemcenter/cc137824.aspx

2. PowerShell

Microsoft's server products have evolved to the point where you can use PowerShell commands to perform all operations. As shown in the following figure, many new server management tools actually Both are built on top of PowerShell, which means that any administrative tasks that can be performed from the GUI can also be done through PowerShell scripts, which you can download from PowerShell 2.0.

2 more powerful PowerShell

PowerShell Official Download: http: //support.microsoft.com/kb/968929/en-us

3, Best Practices Analyzer

The Best Practices Analyzer is not really a stand-alone tool, but a set of tools that help you analyze server deployments to ensure they are compliant with Microsoft's best practices. In practice, Microsoft provides best practice analyzers for Exchange, SQL Server, Small Business Server and other server products. Our common Exchange Best Practices Analyzer is shown below.

Figure 3 Exchange Best Practices Analyzer

4, the Security Configuration Wizard

Security Configuration Wizard is designed to help you reduce the attack surface of the server, It automatically analyzes your server configuration and gives you more secure configuration recommendations. As shown in the following figure, the Security Configuration Wizard is included with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server R2, but you can also download the Windows Server 2003 version from here.

4 Security Configuration Wizard simplifies security configuration

Security Configuration Wizard Official Download: http: //www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/security/Configwiz/default.mspx

5, ADSI Edit

ADSI Edit allows the system administrator to manually edit the Active Directory database, as shown below, I always compare it with the Registry Editor. The Registry Editor allows you to manually modify various configuration parameters of the system, but if used improperly, it may cause Windows to crash. ADSI Edit is similar, it allows you to freely edit Active Directory parameters, but if you do not operate properly, it may also Destroying the Active Directory, the consequences are bound to be more serious, so you need to be careful.

I found that ADSI Edit is also very useful for Exchange deployment. Sometimes the Exchange public folder can't be removed by conventional means. At this time, you can try ADSI Edit, maybe with unexpected results.

5 failed to do, but also what failure of ADSI Edit

6, DCDIAG

Although the domain controller is usually very reliable, Occasionally, there may be minor problems. Especially in the context of Active Directory replication, DCDIAG included in the Windows server allows you to perform a complete troubleshooting test on the domain controller, as shown in the following figure.