How Do You Lab?

My Other Self

I've been reading about "labbing" to gain experience and get a hands-on feel of certain aspects. As some of you know, I"m still studying for my A+ and trying to get an entry level position somewhere.

When you guys mention lab, what do you mean exactly? Let's say I don't have a computer at home right now that I could really do that on (currently, I have a beat up old Vaio laptop with a half burnt-out screen). How would I go about that? I am currently enrolled at a local community college, so is there anything there I could utilize? Or are we talking about taking computers apart?

Just curious... I want to get a better feel of what I'm getting in to.

Danielm7

Depends on what you're going in to really. For a lot of people here that means networks and servers. For networks when someone says they are labbing at home they could either have a virtual simulator on their computer and they are setting up scenarios on the simulator to learn or test things or some people have a pile of hardware (routers, switches, etc) at home and they are configuring it specific ways to learn methods they want to learn.

For servers people either have physical computers at home, either actual server hardware or just regular computers running server software where they test stuff. Or, you can also run them in a virtual machine on your regular computer, or on a spare computer and setup multiple virtual servers to work with.

For your A+, if you can just get your hands inside of real computers, it is helpful. Does your community college have a lab where you can work with hardware?

gorebrush

Pretty much what Daniel said above - I use a combination of physical routers/switches and GNS for my labbing needs, but could mean anything that applies to a "theoretical environment to learn in"

SteveFT

Labbing depends on your level of knowledge and job function. To me labbing is simply learning something that will benefit me in the near future, in a non-production environment.

Right now I am labbing by setting up WDS and MDT 2012 to deploy Windows images. I am also setting up Active Directory environments to play around with. Six months ago, my labbing was stealing a Mac for the night to navigate through all of the settings in the System Preferences, reading logs in the Console, etc. Likewise, I was trying to come up with basic troubleshooting scenarios. For you, labbing would be reading something in the A+ book and then exploring on a computer.

Is a new laptop not in your budget? I wouldn't recommend spending a lot, but you might be able to find something decent on Craigslist. I think Lenovos are generally good machines. I'd recommend trying to find a cheap W510 or T420. The former seems to still sell for $400+, while I've seen the latter in the $200-300 range. I spent $1000 on a W530 for labbing because I can setup multiple servers to play around with. This is not necessary initially, but might be worth it for you once you are in the field.

CodeBlox

Right now labbing for me consists of GNS3 for CCNP Route studies. I also have been labbing network changes before making them on our production environment in GNS3 so that I know a change is safe and that I don't have any unexpected results.

Deathmage

Myself for my labbing purposes bought 2 used Dell R610's off ebay for about 199 per server without the hard drives and ram. I had my job buy me the RAM and I bought bunch of drives from Dell with our company discount and I paid for them outright..

I know it's overkill for some labbing, but for MCSA/MCSE and VCP it's very helpful. PLus if you can figure out the basic of ESXi 5.1 you can pretty much load up like 8 or so server/desktops per host and lab away!

I also have a complete Cisco lab at home and a few HP Procurves and two Sonicwall TZ 210's in HA.

philz1982

I built a massive computer with tons of Ram and VM the heck out of things. I get all the latest images from my school so I don't need to pay for OS's. Also I manage partnerships with a ton of tech companies which helps with getting access to software for testing.

Russell77

My Other Self wrote: »

I've been reading about "labbing" to gain experience and get a hands-on feel of certain aspects. As some of you know, I"m still studying for my A+ and trying to get an entry level position somewhere.

When you guys mention lab, what do you mean exactly? Let's say I don't have a computer at home right now that I could really do that on (currently, I have a beat up old Vaio laptop with a half burnt-out screen). How would I go about that? I am currently enrolled at a local community college, so is there anything there I could utilize? Or are we talking about taking computers apart?

Just curious... I want to get a better feel of what I'm getting in to.

For A+ it's just a matter of getting your hands on some old pc's and trying to make one work. Ask around if anyone has old desktops that are broken or do not want. At the very least you will be able to identify components. If your town has an electronic recycling center see if you can dumpster dive for pc's that are turned in. It will help you a lot.

Hypntick

As everyone has said, labbing means different things to different people. Just depends on what you're looking to do really. I have a small network lab with 4 switches and 4 routers of varying capabilities along with an ASA and Sonicwall for testing purposes, allows me to duplicate or plan for just about everything I see in my job function. I also run VMWare Workstation and have multiple environments set up for testing out various things, just depends on what i'm working on and what I want to test. Currently working on vulnerable web applications and exploitable live disks for more security knowledge.

I wouldn't imagine A+ would require a lab, if you have basic computer fundamentals down you shouldn't have much of an issue with the test. Same with any of the CompTIA certs that i'm aware of, just read the book and get the fundamentals down and you'll be fine. When you start wanting to divert into a more specific role, that's when the lab comes in, allowing you to test concepts you read about in your studies.

gorebrush

That reminds me, I need to cable in my ASA. Spare console link on my terminal server and I just need to make up 8 LAN cables so I can get the badger wired up to my lab. Y'know so I can test port channels and ting.

NovaHax

Once upon a time...there was this cool thing called TechNet. It was where dedicated lab nerds went to get all their favorite Microsoft ISOs. Those were the good old days.

philz1982

NovaHax wrote: »

Once upon a time...there was this cool thing called TechNet. It was where dedicated lab nerds went to get all their favorite Microsoft ISOs. Those were the good old days.

DSU has a technet subscription of sorts. I got Visual Studio Ultimate, Server DC, and SQL BI..... The side benefits of schooling.

Danielm7

philz1982 wrote: »

DSU has a technet subscription of sorts. I got Visual Studio Ultimate, Server DC, and SQL BI..... The side benefits of schooling.

Sounds like DreamSpark. WGU has access there too, had a ton of MS stuff and VMware as well.

Deathmage

NovaHax wrote: »

Once upon a time...there was this cool thing called TechNet. It was where dedicated lab nerds went to get all their favorite Microsoft ISOs. Those were the good old days.

I had my job pay for Technet a day before it expired in cyber-space. I've since then downloaded every ISO off there website and compiled a long list of product keys on my home-based SAN. Never know when they will come in handy, I have two other Technet account that were paid accounts at some point over the past couple years and the keys still work...

jibbajabba

"Labbing" for me has multiple parts really.

1. Testing Production upgrades / implementations in my lab.
- Some companies don't have the budget for a nice lab and if / when I am the responsible person to perform upgrades on production systems, in my case all VMware, I try to replicate the environment and perform maintenance / upgrade / patching etc., in my lab, hence me labbing

2. Labbing for the sake of certifications
- Use blueprints of exams / test scenarios found online or in books (or even Pluralsight) and try to do the scenarios in my lab, replication the test setups etc., see if I can break things / fix things etc.

Depending on the skill sets of my pears I would even ask them to break things for me so I can start fixing them

jdancer

I virtualize everything I can. Granted, there are times I need to deal with physical equipment. I always have my virtualization wand next to me.