MCSA/MCSE & Virtualisation Training

d'NObodyspecial

Hi All,
I'm wondering if anyone here has setup their own lab at home & what tips on equipment would I need to consider buying in order to catch up with the rest of the world on virtualization & MS server admin.

What pros, cons or issues did you run into when setting up your own labs?
Is there anything better than the MS Training books?
Is there any virtualisation software that you prefer?
(i've used virtual box already & setup a few images, but haven't been able to network virtual PCs with a virtual server
1-because I haven't enough RAM;
2-My current acer laptop (core 2 duo) is unstable on bootup and BIOS doesn't support VTx technology;
3-apparently I need at least 1 cpu per VM)

I've been considering building my own PC as per a blog I read previously - with a spec listing:
either of the following processors...
i7-3840QM
i7-3940XM
i7-4900MQ
i7-4930MX
an 120 GB SSD (OS)
500 GB SSD (VMs) ...not sure if I could just buy 1 TB SSD EVO & then partition??
2 or 3 TB HDD (data)
16 GB RAM (expandable up to 32 GB)

...ideally I'd like to be able to work remotely as well, so a laptop would really be more suitable.

Unfortunately my budget is pretty low, however I will need something to support at least 2 to 3 virtual servers and 3 to 5 virtual PCs
with the capability of running a VM of a Mac image for leraning purposes too.

Am I overshooting the mark here? or is any of this on par with other learning labs?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated - thanks!:rolleyes:

_Kaiser_

Seems like overkill to me..

I was in the same boat a few years ago when I was out of work for a year so I bought a 2nd hand Poweredge 2950 on Adverts.ie for about €300, threw some SATA 1.5 TB drives into it and a Technet sub for the OS/licenses

Being a server it already had hardware RAID and 2 Xeon 3.0 CPU's so I loaded up Server 2008 R2 and got cracking with Hyper-V (which is pretty easy to get familiar with really). I'd already played with it a bit in my last job before I was laid off but mostly I read forums, Google searches and the MS docs when I got stuck.

I then migrated it to a Poweredge 1900 as the fan speed of the 2950 was too much to work in a bedroom with it so the 1900 was a bit quieter.

Then when I moved to an apartment I bought a DELL Precision 690 and stripped the guts out of the 1900 - the CPUs, RAM, RAID controller, drives etc as they're all compatible and so now I have a slightly larger than normal PC sitting beside the TV here that's pretty quiet most of the time.

Currently runs Server 2012 Datacentre as the host OS, 2x 3.0 Xeons, 24GB RAM, 3x 1.5 TB SATA HDD on a PERC 5 RAID card and runs 4 VMs hosting my Domain controller (AD, DHCP, DNS, Group Policy, Roaming Profiles), Application server (WSUS, VPN/DirectAccess, WDS), Media server and a spare for messing around with (Exchange, WDS etc). All setup with remote access from inside and outside the LAN as well.

These days though tinkering with it is more a hobby as I'm still in IT but in the management side of things (so I look after the guys who would play with this stuff), but it's no harm to still know your way around this stuff either

moc moc a moc

You're looking at 1TB SSDs and you say you're on a low budget??

What do you need so much space for, anyway? If you're just labbing, you shouldn't need more than 20-30GB per VM.

Outside of virtualization study, you might be better off looking at something like Amazon EC2. It will likely work out less expensive (particularly if you plan to pass all your exams within a few months), more flexible, and satisfies the remote study requirement.

Cuddlesworth

For a whitebox(which is what you obviously want)

500gig SSD, 240 Delivered.

Power supply, 37.09

32 gigs, 235.16

8 Core proc, 101.96

Mobo

Case 39.40


That's about 780 delivered and would run roughly 30 VM's with ease. You could scale it up to about 45 before performance would start to really annoy you.

You could scale that down about 250 if you wanted by dropping the SSD to 128gigs, the ram to 16gigs, the proc to the fx-6300, and going cheap on the other parts(case/mobo/power supply).

Cuddlesworth

moc moc a moc wrote: »

You're looking at 1TB SSDs and you say you're on a low budget??

What do you need so much space for, anyway? If you're just labbing, you shouldn't need more than 20-30GB per VM.

Outside of virtualization study, you might be better off looking at something like Amazon EC2. It will likely work out less expensive (particularly if you plan to pass all your exams within a few months), more flexible, and satisfies the remote study requirement.

Using master images you can easily run 20 machines on 40gigs total.

d'NObodyspecial

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

Currently runs Server 2012 Datacentre as the host OS, 2x 3.0 Xeons, 24GB RAM, 3x 1.5 TB SATA HDD on a PERC 5 RAID card and runs 4 VMs hosting my Domain controller (AD, DHCP, DNS, Group Policy, Roaming Profiles), Application server (WSUS, VPN/DirectAccess, WDS), Media server and a spare for messing around with (Exchange, WDS etc). All setup with remote access from inside and outside the LAN as well.
QUOTE]
Can you recommend anything on the laptop end with the same capabilities?

d'NObodyspecial

moc moc a moc wrote: »

You're looking at 1TB SSDs and you say you're on a low budget??

What do you need so much space for, anyway? If you're just labbing, you shouldn't need more than 20-30GB per VM.

Outside of virtualization study, you might be better off looking at something like Amazon EC2. It will likely work out less expensive (particularly if you plan to pass all your exams within a few months), more flexible, and satisfies the remote study requirement.

Ha Ha - yes, I am on a budget - ideally, I realise a new machine will cost the sum of nearly a grand, but I don't want to buy junk either.

I took a look at EC2, but i'd need a week to figure out all the pricing arrangements on that.

I figured I'd be able to find a laptop that would allow me to do all of the above with the trial versions of server 2008 and 2012 and if I could find a Mac OS to image as well.

My current laptop is a core 2 duo, but it was bought back in 2005 (thus no VTx capability) - I only spent about £600 at that time I was livin in London.

btw - 1 TB EVO SSD: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Basic-Solid-State-Drive/dp/B00E391D00/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376566085&sr=8-1&keywords=1tb+ssd+evo
it's cheaper in the states, but shipping this way isn't possible unless you have a connection there.
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-EVO-Series-2-5-Inch-MZ-7TE1T0BW/dp/B00E3W16OU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376566193&sr=8-1&keywords=1+tb+evo+ssd

d'NObodyspecial

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

For a whitebox(which is what you obviously want)

500gig SSD, 240 Delivered.

Power supply, 37.09

32 gigs, 235.16

8 Core proc, 101.96

Mobo

Case 39.40


That's about 780 delivered and would run roughly 30 VM's with ease. You could scale it up to about 45 before performance would start to really annoy you.

You could scale that down about 250 if you wanted by dropping the SSD to 128gigs, the ram to 16gigs, the proc to the fx-6300, and going cheap on the other parts(case/mobo/power supply).

If I am building a PC this would be Veeerrry tempting!
Good prices too - I noticed that the price of the laptops in Germany is just about the same though. I've been considering saving up some more dough for an MSI, but I wouldn't do without the SSD EVO - for the future use of the laptop +apps it'd be worth every penny.
Only thing I'm not sure of is - can this can be partitioned like traditional ATA/SATA HDDs?

Cuddlesworth

You would be wasting your money trying to run VM's on a laptop, they are never on a par with a desktop.

moc moc a moc

d'NObodyspecial wrote: »

I took a look at EC2, but i'd need a week to figure out all the pricing arrangements on that.

You can get a certain amount of computing power for free for the first year:

http://aws.amazon.com/free/