Executive Summary

Today’s technology landscape is defined by structural shifts across infrastructure, software licensing, and artificial intelligence architectures. In artificial intelligence, the industry is transitioning from brute-force scaling of parameters to optimizing inference-time compute and deploying agentic workflows. This shift is mirrored in cloud computing, where hyperscalers are aggressively deploying custom silicon to mitigate the high capital expenditure of AI workloads while simultaneously building out sovereign cloud architectures to meet stringent regional compliance mandates.

Executive Summary

Today’s technology landscape is defined by a transition from experimental implementations to structural, architectural shifts. In artificial intelligence, the industry is moving rapidly beyond passive chat interfaces toward “agentic” systems capable of autonomous execution and reasoning. This shift is placing new demands on cloud infrastructure, driving cloud providers to expand custom silicon deployments and establish localized, sovereign cloud environments to meet stringent global compliance standards.

Executive Summary

Today’s technology landscape is defined by a transition from experimental implementation to structural optimization. In artificial intelligence, the industry is shifting away from simple, prompt-based interactions toward autonomous, multi-agent workflows and highly efficient Small Language Models (SLMs) designed for edge deployment. This architectural evolution is mirrored in the cloud and DevOps sectors, where custom silicon and platform engineering are reducing the cognitive load on developers while optimizing spiraling infrastructure costs.

Executive Summary

Today’s technology landscape is defined by a critical transition from experimental implementation to operational maturity. In artificial intelligence, the industry is shifting away from monolithic, brute-force models toward highly optimized, agentic workflows and localized Small Language Models (SLMs). This transition promises to democratize AI capabilities while addressing pressing concerns regarding operational costs and data privacy.

Simultaneously, the cybersecurity domain is grappling with systemic vulnerabilities within the software supply chain, forcing organizations to re-evaluate trust boundaries and accelerate the adoption of memory-safe programming languages.

This article describes the full build of a two-server Windows Server 2022 home lab in Proxmox VE. Together, the two virtual machines provide Active Directory Domain Services, DNS, Group Policy and a Certificate Authority (ADCS). RDP connections are secured with PKI certificates so the Mac Mini M1 management workstation connects without certificate warnings.

This is part 3 of the series on building a Windows DevOps lab in Proxmox. In part 1 I described how to create a VM, and in part 2 how to prepare the template.

This is part 2 of the series on building a Windows DevOps lab in Proxmox. In part 1 I described how to create the VM. In this article I prepare the VM as a reusable Proxmox template. All future VMs — the CA server, member servers and other roles — will be cloned from this template.

Important: After Sysprep, never start the VM again. If you do, the generalization is consumed and the template must be rebuilt from scratch.

]]>https://1552afcb.notes-6if.pages.dev/en/posts/ws2022-proxmox-vm-creation/Mon, 30 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0200https://1552afcb.notes-6if.pages.dev/en/posts/ws2022-proxmox-vm-creation/ Download as Word document

In this article I describe step by step how I create a Windows Server 2022 VM in Proxmox VE 9.1.6. The guide is based on real-world experience and includes all corrections and lessons learned along the way. This is part 1 of a series on building a fully functional Windows DevOps lab in Proxmox.

Lab Environment

Component	Value
Proxmox host	macpro2013.local — Mac Pro 2013 Trashcan
Proxmox version	9.1.6
RAM	128 GB
Storage	3.6 TB NVMe (local-lvm pool)
Network bridge	vmbr0 — internal lab network (192.168.178.x)
Proxmox WebUI	https://192.168.178.205:8006

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Why a CA Is Needed — the SSL Warning

Anyone who opens the Proxmox WebUI via macpro2013.local in Safari will immediately see a certificate warning. Proxmox uses a self-signed certificate by default.

]]>https://1552afcb.notes-6if.pages.dev/en/posts/windows_server_2022_ad_dns/Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://1552afcb.notes-6if.pages.dev/en/posts/windows_server_2022_ad_dns/This article describes step by step how I installed Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and DNS on a Windows Server 2022 Datacenter VM in a VMware Fusion lab environment. The result is a fully functional domain controller for the domain lab.local, serving as the foundation for a Windows DevOps lab.

Environment

Component	Value
Virtualization	VMware Fusion (macOS)
Guest OS	Windows Server 2022 Datacenter (Desktop Experience)
Hostname	DC01
Domain name	lab.local
NetBIOS name	LAB
Lab network adapter	Ethernet1 — 172.16.37.10 (static IP)
Internet adapter	Ethernet0 — DHCP via VMware NAT

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Step 1 — Configure Networking

Before installing Active Directory, the domain controller needs a static IP address. AD DS and DNS depend on a stable address.

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