Lab Recommendations

Greetings Everyone,

I will start my studying for "the beast" after I get through this CISA exam (pointless...). In the mean time (and time taking away studying for the CISA), I have been building a virtual lab/domain environment consisting of a Smoothwall Firewall, 3 Windows 2003 servers, and a Windows XP client.

The domain consists of a windows 2003 server (dc, dns, dhcp), windows 2003 server (vpn/rras), and the windows xp client. My third windows 2003 server is a standalone web server (iis). Each virtual machine connects via a "virtual hub" (Microsoft Virtual Loopback Adapter), and each has internet connectivity through the virtual Smoothwall as a gateway.

Does anyone have any recommendations for additions for this lab that may help in my studying? I think i have an excellent start...but for you 'seasoned vets' out there, any kind of help is appreciated!

Thanks

Jimmy

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Comments

sprkymrk

The only thing I would recommend is having more than 1 DC/DNS server.
Good luck.

JdotQ

sprkymrk wrote:

The only thing I would recommend is having more than 1 DC/DNS server.

I would also recommend this, so you can test out DNS zone transfers, etc.

Good luck and be sure to ask questions here on the forums

dynamik

What are you using for study materials? The MS Press books usually have pretty good exercises that they introduce along the way. I'd look through that book to see what is necessary to complete those exercises. I wish I could help more, but I'm just starting this one myself. Good luck!

jbayne3

thanks for the recommendations...i will be using examcram, cramsession, and i'll prolly pick up another read somewhere. I think the lab will work here, and the great thing is, i get a lot of hands on experience at work. I work along with a few engineers with a small data center at my disposal (well, to an extent anyway

)

dynamik

Even if you don't use the MS Press book as a resource, stop by a bookstore and flip through it. Check out the exercises. Jot down anything that seems interesting or challenging.