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What are the essentials for a good home lab?

Cpl.KlingerCpl.Klinger Member Posts: 159
in General Certification
I'm currently working my way through school at a local community college for Information Security, and most likely Information Systems. It's only two or three extra classes to nail that down. My current cert I'm working on is Network +, thanks to my school offering classes that include the cert as part of the class. I want to start going more in depth, and since I'm switching to a new job soon which features a 4 day work week, I'll have more time to lab stuff out. But, I'm stuck right now as to what I need to have for a good home lab. I have an assortment of PC's (three desktops, two laptops) and a 4 port wireless router that's now full. Of the desktops, I've got one running Windows 7, one running Vista, and one running Linux Mint currently (that may change now that my MSDN AA subscription from school got activated). This is all located in the office area of the house, which is fortunately a room that my wife does not care what I do with, server rack included icon_twisted.gif. And granted, I'll have aquire things a peice or two at a time, to stay within budget. So, what should I start looking for?
"If you can't fix it, you don't own it"
"Great things have small beginnings."

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    EveryoneEveryone Member Posts: 1,661
    One word, "Virtualization".

    You have more than enough laying around to make yourself a good lab. I run my entire lab off of 1 PC. I already had the PC, so I don't count it as part of my lab cost.

    If I had an extra system, I'd make a dedicated ESXi server. Since I don't, I run ESXi inside of Workstation 8, on top of my Windows 7 desktop. I have several different versions of Windows running, pfSense, FreeNAS, a couple different Linux systems, and more. I have DNS, DHCP, Active Directory, and Exchange, all running in this lab environment too.
    www.fixtheexchange.com
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    DevilsbaneDevilsbane Member Posts: 4,214 ■■■■■■■■□□
    Computer with lots of RAM and some type of virtualization (I like VMWare workstation but you might prefer others).

    Keep in mind what you want to study for. If you are looking for something in the 2008 track you are going to want to make sure that your system supports Hyper-V
    Decide what to be and go be it.
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    Cpl.KlingerCpl.Klinger Member Posts: 159
    Ok, I think I'm already running fine then. I run Win 7 on my main desktop with 4GB ram and VirtualBox running Android/Windows 8 Preview. I've got 2TB of disk space so I can run a bunch of Virtual Machines as I go. Thanks a bunch!
    "If you can't fix it, you don't own it"
    "Great things have small beginnings."

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