Building a test network -- for the near future

Hello All,

I am currently chasing my MCSE 2003 certifications and my current set up fits my needs (W2K3 running in virtualbox on my XP home laptop); however, the future certifications, 70-291 and beyond, will require more resources than my poor laptop can handle.

Any suggestions/ideas about building a test network for myself that will not break my bank account?

My first idea was to take an old tower and put Ubuntu on it, then install Virtualbox, then put W2K3 server and XP Pro into the virtualbox. I did try to install W2K3 directly onto this old tower however, W2K3 needed drivers which I do not have. On top of I have no idea if it would work.

Regards,

~Obdurate~

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Comments

Obdurate

phoeneous wrote: »

You can run VirtualBox in Windows too. I have it running at home with 2 dc's, 2 exchange boxes, and 3 clients. I have a quad-core and 8gb of dd3 though. You'll want a powerful machine if you're going to run them all at once.

My laptop has 512 megs ram

I wonder if I can put everything on my wife's netbook (the netbook is better than my desktop!)

It is times like this I keep hearing that song from Fiddler on the Roof...

~Obdurate~

earweed

I'm kind of stuck with what I can do also. My desktop has 2G Ram and I' limited to running 3 (stretching it and running slow) guests at a time.
I'm just starting to study for my 70-640 and 642. I'm gonna need a better system, I checked and my HP Pavillion will only support 2G RAM.
Like obdurate, I keep hearing that FOTR song in my head.

Hyper-Me

You may be better off using Technet virtual labs

Although what you can do is somewhat limited, it would be better than nothing

TechNet Virtual Labs: Windows Server 2003

MentholMoose

Obdurate wrote: »

Any suggestions/ideas about building a test network for myself that will not break my bank account?

Upgrade RAM and hard drives, if possible, since this will allow you to run more VMs. RAM prices have increased lately but is still pretty cheap, and hard drives are fairly cheap.

Obdurate wrote: »

My first idea was to take an old tower and put Ubuntu on it, then install Virtualbox, then put W2K3 server and XP Pro into the virtualbox. I did try to install W2K3 directly onto this old tower however, W2K3 needed drivers which I do not have. On top of I have no idea if it would work.

If you can't find drivers specific for Win2K3, try using XP drivers. If a particular device just won't work, replace it... supported NICs and video cards that work with Windows 2003 can be purchased used for very cheap.

Otherwise just go ahead and install Linux on it and install VirtualBox, and it should work fine. You can upgrade the RAM and add hard drives to improve VM performance.

brad-

Obdurate wrote: »

Hello All,

Any suggestions/ideas about building a test network for myself that will not break my bank account?

I would suggest building your own Windows 7 box to take advantage of the extra RAM 64 bit will do for you. A decent new processor and anything over 4 GB RAM should do you ok to run a few virtual HD's. If you already have external storage, use that (you can get 500GB for around $70)...if not, get a larger HD to house the .vhd files.

If you stay with XP, max out your ram, maybe upgrade the processor. You can d/l virtual PC for free, as well as pre-installed .vhd's.

Run IT on a Virtual Hard Disk

ConstantlyLearning

brad- wrote: »

I would suggest building your own Windows 7 box to take advantage of the extra RAM 64 bit will do for you.

If you're going to build a 64 bit box so that you can use more RAM, why would you install windows 7 on it?

A friends laptop has windows 7 on it and it uses something like 1.3GB's of RAM with no applications open!

dynamik

ConstantlyLearning wrote: »

A friends laptop has windows 7 on it and it uses something like 1.3GB's of RAM with no applications open!

Vista was like that too; it's just a performance thing. The OS will use memory if it's available, but will release it if apps need it. I run 7 on my laptop at work and desktop at home, and the performance is stellar.

Hyper-Me

ConstantlyLearning wrote: »

If you're going to build a 64 bit box so that you can use more RAM, why would you install windows 7 on it?

A friends laptop has windows 7 on it and it uses something like 1.3GB's of RAM with no applications open!

Vista and 7 do lots of things in the background with memory while its not being used. Indexing, etc.

Not only that, but Windows 7 x64 is by far the most stable 64 bit windows client OS to date. Vista 64 wasn't bad but obviously 7 is much much better.