NorthStar Consulting Project – Part 1: Introduction

Published: August 31, 2025

I want to delve deeper into the world of Active Directory Domain Services, and by using project-based learning with the power of AI, I could achieve my goal of mastering AD DS concepts including organizational units (OUs), Group Policy management, DNS integration, and user provisioning workflows.

The plan was to get ChatGPT to generate a scenario based on a small company called NorthStar Consulting with a small group of 8 people. Then, I would work through the scenario and create documentation for the structure of AD DS. This would include who works there, what their roles are, and what kinds of services they need.

I would also like to add a network diagram using draw.io to visualize the infrastructure. The lab environment will use VirtualBox to create VMs running Windows Server 2022 for the domain controller and Windows 11 for client machines representing co-workers' workstations. The setup will require approximately 8GB RAM and 100GB storage to accommodate multiple VMs.

This project aims to simulate real-world enterprise scenarios including user account management, security group configuration, file share permissions, and Group Policy deployment.

Part 2: I'll add the scenario and documentation.