Network Setup for 291

I just started studying for the 291, and I know for a fact that I'll need to setup a network. I plan on using one server, one workstation, and some virtual machines. Whether they're virtual machines or not, how many servers and workstations do you suggest that I use to practice for the exam?

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dynamik

I'd say a minimum of two servers and a client or two. I went further than that to screw around with some stuff, but you don't need a huge lab for this.

Good luck with your studies!

Big Jizay

dynamik wrote:

I'd say a minimum of two servers and a client or two. I went further than that to screw around with some stuff, but you don't need a huge lab for this.

Good luck with your studies!

Thanks dynamik! I'm going to have fun building and playing around with this network. I should be ready to slay the beast in 2 or 3 months

Johnny Johnson

Big Jizay, I'm in the same situation as you, and am not quite sure how to go about setting up a lab environment. I only have one computer at this point, and also have VMWare. Would it be good to have Server 2003 on the computer, and XP running on the virtual machine, or is it possible to have two VMs going at the same time and if so, will that take a ton of resources? As you can see I'm pretty clueless on the best way to go about this. Or will I need to buy another computer even?

aordal

You can run as many VMs on your computer as your computer's resources allow. Really it comes down to RAM. I am super stingy so all my servers only use 256mb of ram and my XP box uses 64 mb of ram. So I can have 5 servers and a couple clients running all on 1 computer that only have 2 GB of RAM. They work well enough.

Personally I use Microsof Virtual PC 2007 SP1 (its free) and I download the 180 day server versions from microsoft (free) and setup multiple domains/forests etc.. So as long as your computer is no older than 5 years old. Has at least 1 GB of ram you can lab it up perfectly fine, for free.

Big Jizay

Johnny, basically it's like aordal said, it comes down to RAM. Even though you set up a workstation or server virtually, you need to have enough physical RAM on your computer to support it. If you set your virtual machine with 256MB of RAM, you're using 256MB of RAM of the physical computer. That's what I was told.

jasonmglass

I took a class with GK and they had it setup so we used one machine, with four VM, three Server 03 and one xp... The actual box had 2GB of ram and everything ran smoothly. It's doable...

Big Jizay

jasonmglass wrote:

I took a class with GK and they had it setup so we used one machine, with four VM, three Server 03 and one xp... The actual box had 2GB of ram and everything ran smoothly. It's doable...

Thanks for the info! I'll try that and see what happens.

amp2030

If you're interested in my setup for 291: I used VMWare Workstation on a computer running XP, with 3GB RAM. I assigned each VM 384 MB RAM, and they worked fine. I set up two virtual labs, each with 4 Windows Server 2003 VMs, and various setups for virtual LAN segments. I never ran both labs at the same time so really you could do it all with just 4 VMs. It all ran smoothly.

Big Jizay

amp2030 wrote:

If you're interested in my setup for 291: I used VMWare Workstation on a computer running XP, with 3GB RAM. I assigned each VM 384 MB RAM, and they worked fine. I set up two virtual labs, each with 4 Windows Server 2003 VMs, and various setups for virtual LAN segments. I never ran both labs at the same time so really you could do it all with just 4 VMs. It all ran smoothly.

I have 2GB of RAM on my computer, which has XP, so maybe I can do something close to that. I also have a computer with Server 2003 on it, but it doesn't have a lot of RAM or HD space on it, so I couldn't have VM's on that one. To sum it up, if I have two workstations(one physical, one virtual) and two servers(one physical, one virtual), do you think that'd be enough?

Essendon

That should be enough. But just a word of advice, Big Jizay, I initially had a similar setup, with my PDC as the host machine (W2K3 obviously) with 3 vm's (2 servers and a client), making it 4 machines in all, and I could not get the networking to work. There was something wrong with bridged/host-only networking and the inbuilt DHCP server in VMWare. I had to get my team leader, a VCP, to fix it up for me.

It's better if you can have XP as the host (even W2K3 would do), and have the vm's on a different subnet. That way you leave the host machine alone. Configure the vm's with host-only networking.

Of course you'd learn a bit of VMware, but the aim's to pass this test, right? I ruined about 2 weeks trying to get my head around VMware's networking.

Just my $.02, from my experience.

Big Jizay

Thanks for your feedback Essendon. I'll look into that. I'm really looking forward to setting this network up this weekend. I have to figure out what kind of server roles that I have to set up. DNS and DHCP for sure. Active Directory of course, and Terminal Server. For the 291, should I set up IIS and WSUS also?

Essendon

Your going to need IIS anyway if you install VMware. Of course, you need DNS, DHCP,AD. Have a sub-domain, a couple of DNS servers, I had 2 DHCP's too. Setup an RRAS server, use it as a router, make sure learn the firewall feature. Expect to get hammered by DNS on the test, absolutely ensure you have got down stubs, delegations, forwarders. Also, ensure you can subnet in your sleep

M.C.S.A

Hi, i have pass the exam i remember it

NDA Violation - Content removed by Moderator

Now moveing on to next exam 70 - 290 last paper....worry boy!

Good luck... Guy

Big Jizay

Essendon wrote:

Your going to need IIS anyway if you install VMware. Of course, you need DNS, DHCP,AD. Have a sub-domain, a couple of DNS servers, I had 2 DHCP's too. Setup an RRAS server, use it as a router, make sure learn the firewall feature. Expect to get hammered by DNS on the test, absolutely ensure you have got down stubs, delegations, forwarders. Also, ensure you can subnet in your sleep

Thanks for all of the info Essendon. DNS must get tested on pretty heavily, with the MS Press having 3 chapters on it! Two chapters are dedicated to DHCP, so that must get tested heavily on too. Now let's see if I can get all of these server roles working smoothly together

Essendon

Mr. M.C.S.A. you just violated the NDA.

pyroflames

I have one purpose server, a dell 3.2 1.5gb of ram and a couple sata hard drives, so i may run everything on that by vm.

currently it has server 2003 install, i may install vm software and run anohter server 2003 and 2 xp computers that should do i think for 70-291

i have also got my laptop should cover a small network in vm machines... who should i blaim when smoke comes out the back of it??