Virtual MCSE lab using Vmware

For those who have already built a mcse through vmware, how steep of a learning curve is vmware? What cpu and memory do you recommend?

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dynamik

It's pretty straight-forward. Which flavor of VMware are you looking at?

I'd try to go with at least a dual-core and 2-4gb of ram for a typical setup. Maybe add another disk or two since that seems to be a bottleneck once you get more than a few going.

aeroguy

thanks for the reply dynamik, is vmware workstation recommended or vmware server?

dynamik

I like the features in Workstation, but Server is free. It depends on what you want to do and what your budget is. You can download a free trial of Workstation. Also, VirtualBox is another free virtualization product. I'm not really familiar with it, but you might want to look into that as well.

http://www.virtualbox.org/

msteinhilber

I also prefer VMWare Workstation over Server for a couple of reasons. First is multiple snapshots, I haven't used VMWare Server in a good 6 months or so, but when I used it I don't believe you could keep more than one snapshot. Another reason I like it is the teaming feature, you can basically setup a virtual LAN that a team of VM's are part of and adjust the bandwidth of the links which has come in handy for me on the job for performance testing, you can even introduce "virtual" packet loss and latency, how slick is that

Daniel333

Snag a computer with a Q6600 or better and 4gigs of ram and you're set.

Some people install extra NICs into their workstation and bind each VM to their own NIC then connect to a physical switch and router in order to better simulate the real world. Might wana consider that if yuo have a Cisco back ground.

Workstation or server doesn't matter. Server is free, no sound, no snap shots. (I never use them anyway)

ilcram19-2

for my mcse i used virtual pc 2007 it worked fine for mcse but for mcsa:m i used vmware server 2.0 since it allowe me to create a virtual SAN for the exchange cluster

dynamik

Daniel, ever try installing a bunch of loopbacks and using dynamips? Also, someone posted this the other day. I haven't had a chance to check it out, but it looked interesting: http://www.zeroshell.net/eng/

ilcram, did you use the vmdk hack or did you setup something like OpenFiler? Just curious...

gonzoflick

I would strongly advise you to try Parallels Server 3.0. Its a far better VM solutions that VMware. Quicker loads, better networking, smoother feel than VM 2.0's new web based management.