MCSE 2012 + Lab

Hi Folks

So I just upgraded some hardware on my lab workstation. Its got more than enough power to run what I need!
Installed VMware Workstation. P2V one of my 2012 servers from the office, Also, P2V my W7 machine from the office.
I will have a total of 3 Windows 2012 servers + 1 Windows 7, 1 Windows 8, and 1 Windows 10 VMs (May be XP for shits and giggles)
Host is Windows 8, i7, 16G-Ram, with 256 SSD for the OS and a 2TB HDDs (Western Digital, I think) to host the VMs.

I am fairly new to setting up a lab in a virtual environment so I just need some suggestions\advice

1. Does the set up look like its enough for a good lab: Specs, numbers of VMs, anything else?
2. Do I just clone the 2012 server I already have for the rest of the lab or do I need to create a new server for each instance? I remember something about either that or having to sysprep it? If someone could kind of explain this, I would appreciate it
3. I understand that I need to put he lab on a different lan. So with physical labs, I just used to put the lab network on a different router and it would have it own network and I could test the crap of out of it without having to mess up my home network and god forbid interrupt my wife's TMZ time. How do I do this on VMware Workstation? From what I understand I can set up a "virtual router". How would I go about doing that? I know there are some virtual routers from Vyatta for these types of labs, but I don't really understand how to set it up. Are these just virtual appliances like on a regular ESXi environment?

Anyway, if someone can help out with this, I would really appreciate it. Especially the virtual router part to separate the network from the lab network. A simple, but detailed explanation would be really helpful as I am not exactly sure I understand how to do this in the virtual environment!

Thank you very, very much in advance!

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Comments

TestTitan

vyatta will work, or if you are more comfortable with windows RRAS you can use that as a router too. Vyatta is a more of a basic setup but you need to know the commands. Google search will get you what you need. Setup your virtual switches (recommend 3 min) and assign an interface for each one to your router. Also, you will need a static route to each network setup on your main network router, usually your home router. My config is all virtual, using MoNoWall as my internet facing router and Vyatta as the internal network router. I'll try to export my Vyatta config which will help you with the syntax.

cruwl

There is really no need to segment your lab into its own network while at home. Really the only thing that may interfere with your home network is when you setup DHCP. Youll get more experiance out of setting up your OWN DHCP at home any ways, and you can always turn it off and the one on your router back on.

There are multiple ways of doing your server VMs, easiest way would be to build 1, get it all patched. Clone it, run sysprep on each new clone.
I prefer to install from scratch a new VM for what ever I am working on. That way you dont have some config messing with you that maybe you forgot you already set up.

You don't need to have ever VM running, Also learn to take snap shots, get everything named, patched and IPed - Take a snap shot. Do a lab say via the gui, revert the lab to the snap shot and try it all again via command line.

Hope that info helps.