setting up home training lab

Oakparktech

Hi Everyone,

I want to setup my own home training lab so I can start gaining more experience in the things that I want to learn. I know that I'm wanting to setup a server or a powerful workstation that can run VMs. I plan on setting up AD, DNS, DHCP, Exchange etc.

Any suggestions where to begin?

Should I use VMware's ESXi, Hyper V, VMware workstation ?

My machines:
Laptop Intel i5 8GB HD
PC Quad Core 16GB 120GB SSD

thanks in advance!

dbrink

I would just install VMWare Player or Virtualbox, both are free. I use VMWare player right now and it works great.

ITMonkey

My 70-680 lab environment replied on VirtualBox. Had no choice in the matter, really: my machine was x86 and I used Server 2008 vms instead of its R2 cousin.

Since then I built a x64 machine just for labbing. I moved to Hyper-V and would not consider moving back to VirtualBox. I'm now registered into a VMWare VSphere class beginning later this month, so may make that additional transition.

Many -- but not all -- of the advantages of VirtualBox are being put to pasture, imho. Might want to use VirtualBox to test lab certain Linux or other OS's that Hyper-V doesn't support. But otherwise, I don't understand why VirtualBox has any advantage over Hyper-V and especially a VMWare product.

On the other hand, you also need to ask yourself where your lab exercises will come from. Hyper-V, from what I've seen, has more free exercises and labbing study material than the others. And it is free also because it is a Windows Server role. I presume you are seeking Microsoft certifications, in which case you'll need Windows Server.

VMWare has the lion's share of the commercial hypervisor market. However I often see threads from people trying to learn ESXi or debug problems in their lab environment. I stuck to using Hyper-V and the breadth of practice labs available on the internet, I can't recall any such problems. Now that I've got Hyper-V under my belt, I'm ready to throw VSphere into the mix. Seems a more prudent and step-by-step approach. That's my 2 cents.

Oakparktech

Thanks.

Should I use Hyper V from my windows 8 64bit laptop? or install Hyper V on my PC. Specs are below

My two machines:
Laptop Intel i5 8GB HD
PC Quad Core 16GB 120GB SSD

Do you have any other info to get me started with proper way to setup lab. ex: setup Hyper V, next is install VMs etc

Hypntick

Depending on what type of VMs you're looking for, VMWare workstation is an amazing product and well worth the investment.

kriscamaro68

Oakparktech wrote: »

Thanks.

Should I use Hyper V from my windows 8 64bit laptop? or install Hyper V on my PC. Specs are below

My two machines:
Laptop Intel i5 8GB HD
PC Quad Core 16GB 120GB SSD

Do you have any other info to get me started with proper way to setup lab. ex: setup Hyper V, next is install VMs etc

If you have access to Hyper-v then I would go that route. If you don't already have a TechNet account and can afford it that would be worth the purchase as well. If I where in your shoes I would probably buy another SSD for the desktop to run a bunch of VM's and maybe put one in the laptop as well. That's just me though. I have to have my VM's running on SSD's cause I hate waiting.

About7Narwhal

I am unsure to what extent you are planning on deploying an Exchange Server, but don't get your hopes up on a live system. Most Home contracts with ISPs strictly and explicitly forbid email servers.

**EDIT**

That aside, if you are looking to actively deploy and maintain a network, lifehacker has a great tutorial on how to wire a house. I plan on taking up the endevor eventually.

Asif Dasl

About7Narwhal wrote: »

I am unsure to what extent you are planning on deploying an Exchange Server, but don't get your hopes up on a live system. Most Home contracts with ISPs strictly and explicitly forbid email servers.

You can always use DynDNS or a VPS as a proxy. Use different ports if port 25 is blocked at the ISP.

gorebrush

I run VMWare Workstation on my main desktop - i7 2600, 16GB RAM, 240GB SSD, GeForce GTX680
I run ESXi on my Microserver - 8GB RAM in there and strictly one or two production VM's though (i.e. media server and a Windows Terminal Server)

MiikeB

I run VMWare Workstation on my laptop with 3 nested ESXi hosts, each having a guest Server 2008 R2 Server, plus an additional vCenter VM and a Domain Controller just fine. I also use Starwinds software to simulate a SAN. Runs like a champ on an i7 Q2620m with 16GB Ram. You may not have enough space if that 120GB SSD is your OS drive too. All of mine run on a separate 120GB mSata drive. My CPU stays around 30% utilization, not bad and I can leave the lab up and still do my day to day stuff without noticing. I would not recommend a non flash storage solution for that many VMs.

Oakparktech

Thanks for all the helpful replies.

I am currently working in desktop/operations with some server experience and my next goal is to work on microsoft certifications. MCSE or MCITP.
Setup AD, DNS, DHCP, Exchange etc and work with labs and get experience on things I cannot touch at my work. Got to start some where.

I am probably going to setup everything on my quad core 16GB SSD and connect with logmein - is this a good idea or better to have my lab on a laptop?

any books or labs I should get started On?

I appreciate the advice. thanks

jonny72

I remote in to my home lab all the time via VPN (through my router), works perfectly and far better than having a lower spec lab on your laptop.

If you're going for Microsoft certs stick to Hyper-V rather than VMware. Use the free 2012 version if you don't have a Technet subscription.

Chivalry1

Hyper-V or RHEL KVM. To me both offer bare metal virtualization platform that are easy to manage. I run both on 2 separate workstations/servers.

Oakparktech

Thanks for the advice.


I don't have my experience in command line. Does TechNet account offer any discounts on purchases of windows server 2008 or windows server 2013?

Is this the right approach? I am a rookie and just want to learn.

I will setup my lab on Quad-Core 16GB machine 300HD and 120GB SSD

1. Install Windows 8 64bit and enable Hyper V on 300GB HD
2. Create a folder VMs on the 120GB SSD.
3. Load windows server 2008 and Windows Server 2012 on SSD

I been watching training videos on you tube and this has helped understand the process.

jonny72

Go to the Technet site and check out the subscription benefits, they give you license keys for all Microsoft products for testing / evaluation. You can make do without it but it makes it a lot easier.

Personally I'd go for Server 2012 as the Hyper V host.

You don't really need an SSD, ram is more important and 16Gb is plenty. You might want some more disk space though, you'll be building a lot of VM's and the disk space will go quickly with backups and snapshots.

Sounds Good

What are people's thoughts on using hybrid SSDs for builds like this?

You can get 1TB for about 100.