Second Network on a Virtual Network

[garethEds]

HI All,

 

We have our network services running from a HP box running HYperV2012r2. Two HP boxes with a 10Tb SAN run the services. All can see the network and it all runs lovely. We have one virtual switch.

 

I want to start playing with setting up my own network from scratch. One DC (maybe 2016) and two networked machines (one to admin and one for example curriculum). This would need it's own IP address range etc and it cannot interfere with the other network (yet it may need internet access via the other network).

 

Sounds complicated to me - but can it be done and can anyone help or advise?

 

Thanks

 

Gareth

[howartp]

We did this a couple of years ago on VMware when we set up a brand new domain on an isolated vSwitch with it's own VLAN, and a separate CAT5 into another port on the Smoothwall.

 

Can't help with HyperV though.

[PotNoodleTech]

It can be done as mentioned as long as you use separate virtual switches with separate virtual networks.

 

To be honest Gareth, "experimenting" using your production system is bad practice. One wrong mouse click, one wrong virtual switch / vlan and you could risk taking down your network.

 

Given how cheap you can get old out of date servers (that still can run Vmware/Hyperv) from places like ICT Direct / Bargain Hardware - I would always just get a cheap server, or even a workstation, set a new test network up on totally different hardware. The good thing is - your VMs you set up for testing - if you get them set up exactly as you see fit they can easily be transferred to your production system when your ready to make the switchover.

[garethEds]

It can be done as mentioned as long as you use separate virtual switches with separate virtual networks.

To be honest Gareth, "experimenting" using your production system is bad practice. One wrong mouse click, one wrong virtual switch / vlan and you could risk taking down your network.

Given how cheap you can get old out of date servers (that still can run Vmware/Hyperv) from places like ICT Direct / Bargain Hardware - I would always just get a cheap server, or even a workstation, set a new test network up on totally different hardware. The good thing is - your VMs you set up for testing - if you get them set up exactly as you see fit they can easily be transferred to your production system when your ready to make the switchover.

 

Cheers @AButters - you are right of course. I will look at this during the next round of funding I get in April.

 

Gareth

[rom1984]

I've done something similar but I used VMWAre Workstation Pro. I created a VM called Test-Lab and then on that VM installed VMWare Workstation. I then spun up 6-7 different machines and installed GNS3 and connected them together via GNS3. I did it as I'm merging 3 schools together so I had a test server + a client for each school each within its own subnet and used GNS3 routers to connect them. Nothing touches the production network and I can test everything from AD, DNS, DHCP, Routing, IP SEC VPN's etc etc

[garethEds]

I've done something similar but I used VMWAre Workstation Pro. I created a VM called Test-Lab and then on that VM installed VMWare Workstation. I then spun up 6-7 different machines and installed GNS3 and connected them together via GNS3. I did it as I'm merging 3 schools together so I had a test server + a client for each school each within its own subnet and used GNS3 routers to connect them. Nothing touches the production network and I can test everything from AD, DNS, DHCP, Routing, IP SEC VPN's etc etc

 

What is GNS3? I've found the website but not a clue what it does.

[rom1984]

It's basically a Cisco network emulator, I use it to practice configuring Cisco network devices. You basically upload a real Cisco IOS to it and you can then create network topologies as if they are a real network. I pop 3 routers on the GNS interface and configure them, then within VM Workstation I create a virtual network adapter and tell GNS3 to use that network adapter so I can create a test network that looks like my proper school network.

 

Since writting this though I've started having problems with using 64 bit Server OS within VM workstation as the VM Workstation is sat on top of a hyerpvisor already. There was work around's but I ended up spending too long messing about fixing it that I eneded up just using an old server, installing server 2012 and installed VM Workstation and GNS3 on that and its worked perfectly.

[PotNoodleTech]

Yeh I'd strongly recommend using an old server or an old PC - Win Server with Hyper V and VMware ESXi tend to install fine on a wide range of hardware both new and old. It also makes it much easier to transfer the VMS you've worked on into production if you need to - no conversions or anything just copy the files up and "add new VM from file".