As in real life, Certificates are not just granted for anything and everything. Instead, they are usually requested or granted with a specific purpose in mind: File Recovery, EFS, Client/Server Authentication, Secure Email, and so on. These ‘purposeful’ certificates are generated as Certificate Templates. They allow a single user account to possess multiple certificates that certify/authorize various and sundry activities. A user account may have one certificate that allows for local file encryption, and another that allows access to a web server. Just like multiple identification cards, the appropriate certificates are used when the circumstances dictate its use. Certificates are stored within a user’s profile. This allows for computer and system roaming to occur and provides an added level of flexibility that would otherwise be unavailable. Once certificates are exchanged, and authenticity is established, communication occurs, but additional security factors can be put in place to help enhance the rest of the communications process.

Exam 70-293 Planning and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure requires you to know the ins and outs of Certificate Services. The exact sub-objectives relating to Certificate Services include:

• Identify the appropriate type of certificate authority to support certificate issuance requirements

• Plan the enrollment and distribution of certificates
• Plan for the use of smart cards for authentication
• Configure Active Directory directory service for certificate publication

As you can see, you need to have a thorough understanding of how to implement Certificate Services if you plan to challenge this particular exam. Some of the specific topics that you need to study up on are listed below.

• Certificate authority types

• Certificate enrollment
• Certificate distribution methods
• Publishing certificates
• Installing and configuring Certificate Services

Your first step should be to examine the different types of certificate authorities that can be configured. This topic will be covered in the next installment of this article.