Best practices for windows server

You can allow SQL port to listen over the public interface, but you must limit this rule to only the IP addresses of the computers where the developers are connecting to the databases on the server. By limiting access to this port, you mitigate these issues before they start. For servers running SQL Server Standard or SQL Server Web editions, we recommend configuring maintenance plans to dump the data from the live database files into flat files that you can back up off the server and to clean up the backups so they do not fill your hard drive.

Ensure that Windows updates are enabled, and be mindful of the state of your server— ensure that your Windows operating system OS is patched. Patch Tuesday, which occurs on the second Tuesday of each month in North America, is the day on which Microsoft regularly releases security patches.

Customers must decide how best to implement a patching strategy that keeps their servers up-to-date. Set up some type of disaster recovery plan. One option that we offer is to create cloud server images nightly and write them to your Cloud Files containers with a default retention of seven days. You take a snapshot of the server and store the image in Cloud Files for use in creating new server instances or rebuilding the existing server from that image.

We also offer file-level backup through Cloud Backups. Additionally, if you configured SQL Server maintenance plans to dump the live data into flat files for backups, we recommend that you also include those directories in the backup. Check backup jobs to ensure that they complete successfully and that the backups are valid. Create a new server instance from an image to ensure that the image is valid, and restore a file from Cloud Backups to verify that the data backed up is restored.

Note : Not all servers can benefit from Cloud Images. Specifically, you cannot image servers that use Boot from Volume configurations. Additionally, while a server image can be useful, images should never be considered the only source of backup because the image process does not verify the file integrity.

But if this is your only domain controller, you're probably out of luck. But you can't rename a domain controller easily. Thank you again for the feedback! Can you elaborate on the importance of using DFS, even with one file server? One best practice to keep in mind: your Active Directory DNS domain should be based upon a registered domain you own. You can make it a subdomain. The reason is because you can't purchase an SSL certificate for an unregistered domain or a domain that isn't registered to you.

So, if you own the domain randomspicehead[. When you choose your NetBIOS domain name, make it something that's easy to type, because you'll be typing it a million times a day. Set up an alternate UPN suffix that matches the email domain for your users. So if your users' email is [ ]randomspicehead[. DO NOT use something like myaddomain[.

Doing so has the potential to limit your ability to provide services within your domain, or at least make it more difficult. Jenner's got a lot of good points, but one thing to note when creating drives for your VMs is to make each virtual drive a separate file.

Sometimes installed antivirus software can mitigate the vulnerability, In this situation, you have to take a call with the security team. As far as installed antivirus is securing your environment, you can patch the servers in regular patching schedule. Make sure you have confirmation from antivirus vendor about security coverage.

Patching and restart you can automate If you are going to take care of pre-work of resources movement before Patch deployment schedule. Office Office Exchange Server. Not an IT pro? United States English. Post an article. Subscribe to Article RSS. Click Sign In to add the tip, solution, correction or comment that will help other users. Report inappropriate content using these instructions. Windows Server Patching: Best Practices. Audience Windows Server Administrators and the people who follow server patching via any patching tool available in the market.

Important This article covers for the Windows Server environment and applicable for Operating System patching - like Windows Server , , , this will not cover for installed Microsoft or any other application on servers - like Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, SQL etc.

For application patching separate test needs to be carried by application specialist before deployment to production environment. Try to develop a policy for access control. Apply need based access policy so that only those who need to work on the server have appropriate access rights and permissions.

Be careful of default permissions — checkout for the default permission of your drives and applications. If there are multiple privileged users accessing the server for maintenance work, you need to give them permission based on their needs.

Do not give anyone privileged access if they do not require them. Use a host based intrusion detection and prevention system so that your system can automatically defend itself and take corrective actions without your intervention when it detects any unusual activity. Security assessment — you can use either open-source or commercial vulnerability assessment tools to assess the current states of you Windows servers. Use file integrity checker -If the system has sensitive data directory, you can use file integrity checker to investigate if anyone has tempered your data.

You can run integrity check regularly, at least once in a week, based on your needs and the level of sensitivity of your data. Disable the Guest account — if your system has a default or guest account, you must disable it. Also, make sure all the applications installed on your server are not using default username and password.

Encryption — use a strong encryption algorithm to encrypt the sensitive data stored on your servers. Also, make sure that the data on-the-move are also being transferred in encrypted format. Renaming default administrative account — this is the most basic thing that you need to pay attention to.