Introduction to Administering NPS
Applies To: Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012
This guide, in conjunction with the NPS procedural Help topics, explains how to administer NPS. The objectives, tasks, and procedures described in this guide and in procedural Help topics discuss actions that are part of the operating phase of the information technology (IT) life cycle.
To access the NPS procedural Help topics, open the NPS console and press F1.
If you are not familiar with this guide, review the following sections of this introduction.
When to use this guide
This guide assumes a basic understanding of what NPS is, how it works, and why your organization uses it to manage network access, including the authentication, authorization, and accounting for network connections. It also assumes that you have a thorough understanding of how NPS is deployed and managed in your organization before performing any of the actions described in this guide.
This guide can be used by organizations that have deployed Windows Server 2008. It includes information that is relevant to different roles within an IT organization, including IT operations management and administrators.
This guide contains both general information and more detailed procedures that are designed for operators who have varied levels of expertise and experience. Although the procedures provide operator guidance from start to finish, operators must have a basic proficiency with Microsoft Management Console (MMC) and its snap-ins. They must also know how to start administrative programs, access the command line, and run the Netsh commands for NPS.
If operators are not familiar with NPS, it might be necessary for IT planners or IT managers to review the relevant operations in this guide and provide the operators with parameters or data that must be entered when the operation is performed.
How to use this guide
The operations areas are divided into the following types of content:
Objectives are general goals for managing, monitoring, optimizing and securing NPS. Each objective consists of one or more general tasks that describe how the objective is accomplished.
Tasks are used to group related procedures and provide general guidance for achieving the goals of an objective.
Procedures provide step-by-step instructions for completing tasks.
If you are an IT manager who will be delegating tasks to operators within your organization:
Read through the objectives and tasks to determine how to delegate permissions and whether you need to install tools before operators perform the procedures for each task.
Before assigning tasks to individual operators, ensure that you have all the tools installed where operators can use them.
When necessary, create “tear sheets” for each task that operators perform in your organization. Cut and paste the task and its related procedures into a separate document, and then either print these documents or store them online, depending on the preference of your organization.