Lab prerequisite MCSA Windows 2012

blazingmanblazingman Registered Users Posts: 1 ■□□□□□□□□□
Hello,

What are the prerequisites to set up a home LAB ?

Comments

  • techster79techster79 Member Posts: 169 ■■■□□□□□□□
    You will need at least one Windows 8 client, two server 2012 for DC and other roles and possibly a 2008r2 server for migration/backward compatibility scenarios. So a beefy laptop or desktop able to virtualized that should have at least 8gb of ram, 100gb of HDD space and a quad core or better CPU.
    Studying for MCSE: Server Infrastructure (70-414 left)
  • ITMonkeyITMonkey Member Posts: 200
    Not to forget ... you ought to run your lab environment as virtual machines within a hypervisor. Candidate hypervisors include: WMware's ESXI, or Hyper-V (also free, as it is a role provided in Server 2012, which you can download and evaluate for free from Microsoft; it is also a feature included in Windows 8 Pro), or Oracle's Virtual Box.

    I purchased an annual Microsoft TechNet subscription. A purchase I am more than happy about.
  • kriscamaro68kriscamaro68 Member Posts: 1,186 ■■■■■■■□□□
    Here is my lab pre-reqs

    Dell PowerEdge C1100 1U 2X Xeon QC L5520 2 26GHz No HDD 72GB DDR3 Tested | eBay -Bought 2 of these and they are awesome. 1 is more than enough though.

    buy 1 120gb Samsung 840ssd 3 256gb Samsung 840pros
    install server 2012 on it and use storage pools and make a spanned volume with the 3 256gb ssd's and install server 2012 on the 120gb drive. With the storage pool you will get about 800 MB/s reads and writes and will get plenty of space to store all your vhds. Plus 16 cores and 72gb of ram you really won't have a need for anything to run labs on for quite some time.

    Don't forget about a TechNet subscription to.
  • olaHaloolaHalo Member Posts: 748 ■■■■□□□□□□
    I briefly looked at the Technet subscriptions and I don't get the major advantage.
    Aren't most of the MS products available for free for 90 days?

    Also I am pretty new to Virtualization. I have setup a few VMs and the typical XP Mode stuff, but nothing using VMware ESXi.
    Anyone know of a basic guide? Im watching train signal vids at the moment and they are helping somewhat.
    I just dont want to setup something up wrong or purchase something I dont need.
  • jonny72jonny72 Member Posts: 69 ■■■□□□□□□□
    Technet makes it a lot easier, especially as you don't have to rebuild your lab every 90 days and you have downloads of pretty much every single Microsoft product at your finger tips. I reckon it is worth every penny.

    If you've got a stand alone PC to use for labs, if you're going for Server 2012 certs you want to go with Hyper-V as it is covered by the certs.
  • gabyprgabypr Member Posts: 136 ■■■□□□□□□□
    jonny72 wrote: »
    Technet makes it a lot easier, especially as you don't have to rebuild your lab every 90 days and you have downloads of pretty much every single Microsoft product at your finger tips. I reckon it is worth every penny.

    If you've got a stand alone PC to use for labs, if you're going for Server 2012 certs you want to go with Hyper-V as it is covered by the certs.

    I decided to purchase a Windows 8 Pro laptop for that same reason, to use the Hyper-V client to create my virtual lab at the same time I learn to use it. Hyper-V its extensively covered in the new MCSE 2012.
    EC-Council Master in Security Science M.S.S [Done]

    Reading Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification Exam prep by Sohel Akhter
  • olaHaloolaHalo Member Posts: 748 ■■■■□□□□□□
    Thanks for the input gabypr and jonny72.
    Ill look more into Technet
  • JayBliskJayBlisk Member Posts: 182
    Doing the 417 now and in past studying for certs TechNet subscription is the way to go. I plan on keeping the subscription from now on. I have a HP server with 16gb of ram with 6 Intel ssd's in raid 0 with an Adaptec raid controller. Also 3tb drive for storage. I use to have VMware on my server but now it Hyper V. This site and TechNet are invaluable.
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