This post is the continuation to my previous post  – Deploying SharePoint 2013 on Microsoft Azure using IASS–part 1. The focus of the part2 of this series to cover the steps required to configure Domain Controllers (both Primary and Backup) in detail.

Configuration of Domain Controllers

Log on to the SP2013-DC1 VM (created in the Part1 of the article).

Server Manager àDashboard à Add Roles and Features.

Select Installation Type (set the default value of Role-based or feature-based installation).

Select Destination Server and Select a Server from the Server pool and click next.

Select Server Roles àActive Directory Domain Services and click Next

Now the Active Directory Domain Services are successfully installed in this Server SP 2013-DC1 and SP2013-DC2. We have already performed the step of initializing the Empty Disks. The next logical step is to perform activity of Promoting the SP2013-DC1 VM as the Domain Controller for the SharePoint 2013 farm that we are going to build.

Promotion of Virtual Machine to Domain Controller of the SP Farm

In this step, we would be performing the list of steps that are required to promote the Virtual Machine SP2013-DC1 as the Domain Controller of the SP Farm.

Server Manager à Manage link (on upper right hand corner) à Promote this server to a domain controller.

Deployment Configuration à Add a Forest

Set any arbitrary name for Root Domain name and Click next.

Set the Directory Services Restore Mode password as ‘Password123’.

We will get an error like ‘a delegation for the DNS cannot be found” and this can be ignored.

Additional Options à You will see the NetBios name reflected as the root domain name given in the previous step.

The next step is to set the path for Database folder, log files folder and SYSVOL folder.

Review all the selected options and Click next. We’ll see successful message for pre-requisites.

Click Install.

We’ll see a success message ‘The server was successfully configured as Domain Controller’. We need to create the set of Users (Service Accounts mentioned in the section 1b) in the Domain.

Server Manager à Tools à Active Directory Users and Computers.

Action à New à User.

Set the password as ‘password-1’ and make it as password never expire.

Repeat the above 2 steps for creating other service accounts like sp_farm_db, sp_install and sqlservice.

Provide domain admin rights for sp_install user.

Grant more rights to sp_install user.

On the domain name à Right click à Properties à Security à Advanced à

Advanced Security settings for domain à Select allow for Read all properties and Create computer objects.

This completes the setup of primary domain controller. We’ll set up the back-up domain controller in the next section.

Setup of back-up domain controller

In this section, we’ll see the necessary steps to configure back-up domain controller. The whole idea is that we’ll not be promoting the back-up DC (SP2013-DC2) as the domain controller for the farm, rather we will be adding the domain controller to the domain (techguru.com) running on primary domain controller VM (SP2013-DC1).

Click ‘Promote this server to Domain Controller’ and select ‘Add a domain controller to an existing domain’. Select credential techgurusp_install and the password for performing this operation.

Now we have successfully installed the domain controller. In the next post, we’ll cover the steps to configure SQL Server 2012 on Microsoft Azure for the SharePoint 2013.

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