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Azure web and mobile apps can be hosted for free, even beyond the 30-day trial. Apparently also SQL Azure can be used with a 20 MB DB size limit. Sources: Azure Pricing Azure App Service Pricing Get a free 20-MB SQL database to power your Mobile Services and Web Sites Keywords: Azure, Webhosting, Web App, Mobile App, SQL Azure

This quickly shows how to install the DHCP server role on Windows 2012 R2 and how to quickly configure an IPv4 scope. Sources: Windows Server Administration Fundamentals: Part 5: Essential Services @ 0:22 - 0:28 Keywords: Windows Server 2012 R2, Roles, DHCP

For the Kerberos protocol, which is used on Active Directory to work properly all machines need to be in sync regarding their local time. Linked are two articles on how to configure Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers correctly with the Windows Server 2012 R2. In essence the following needs to be done in the powershell: w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:pool.ntp.org /syncfromflags:MANUAL Stop-Service w32time Start-Service w32time You can use the event log in case you need to troubleshoot issues. In case you get the error message "The computer did not resync because no time data was available" the problem could lie in the fact that you need to modify the group policy settings accordingly. Also see linked MS KB article on that issue. You can retrieve the current configuration with: w32tm /query /configuration To resync right away: w32tm /resync Sources: Sysadmin Lab Blog: Configuring NTP on Windows Server 2012 Microsoft Knowledge Base Article for ...

In service level agreements (SLAs) usually there is a nice number given on availability. No one will guarantee 100% of uptime, but like 99%. Over a year this means quite some downtime. Microsoft claims to aim to keep their systems at 99.999% uptime (except planned downtime). So, during a whole year such a system should not fail for more than about 5 minutes. Sources: Windows Server Administration Fundamentals: Part 4 @ ~0:40 minutes Keywords: Uptime, SLA