Study environment

[dezt]

I have my MCSA in windows 2000, and want to upgrade to 2003. Obviously trying things out on the servers I have in place at the moment would be crazy, especially when I get to the parts of trying out DNS and DHCP. I was wondering if anybody had setup some sort of mini network, or used something like virtual PC to try this on. I would ideally like to create a small network of at least 3 PC's but the best spec PC's I have lying around are P2 with about 64Mb RAM and the biggest hard drive lying around is about 2Gb.

 

Any good ideas out there?

 

dezt

[apeo]

Just nick a few computers from the network and say its being upgraded or fixed :twisted:

[CyberNerd]

http://www.vmware.com/

 

Full test environment and ideal for mothballing old servers.

[marco84]

Id recomend using virtual PC, i have it set up at home and works very well. Its also useful for testing group policy changes etc that you have planned for yor network at school.

[apeo]

I use Vmware too to create virtual evironments and it does work pretty well but i did take a while to setup tho.

[DMcCoy]

VMware server is now free! Its still in beta test but is similar to the gsx solution. Visit the site to get a beta version, full license will be free when it goes gold.

 

ESX is not Although vm server deployment is going really well, no issues yet and I have around 15 virtual servers running at the moment.

[DMcCoy]

Oh, and don't forget you can use PXE boot in vmware too.

[dezt]

I've managed to find enough parts to build a pc with, unfortunatly not powerful enough to run VMware.

 

Cel 300, 256Mb, 4.3Gb CD-rom 10/100 LAN.

 

What a beast.....

[ChrisH]

I also run all my testing stuff on my workstation and home PC under vmware. It has a gig of memory and I can run 2 servers and 2 workstations.

[dezt]

If I was to install VMware onto a machine, I have a spare server here doing nothing at the moment, would I be able to use it to simulate a network?

 

I only ask because i've never used it before and my ideal situation would be to have 2 servers and at least 1 workstation, if not 2 on the same network doing serveral things like dns replication and iis and all the stuff microsoft want me to learn about for the exams that never get to heavily used on the school servers.

[ChrisH]

In vmware you can simulate a network with in its own private network sort of like a VLAN or you can also have it interact with the main network. If you go for the first option I dont see any problems at all.

 

I have an 2000 MCSA as well but having worked in both environments I wouldnt have thought there wasnt that much extra to learn as most of the fundemental stuff is the same.

[DMcCoy]

I've not used gsx or the new vmware server, but you may be able to connect the virtual machines to a virtual switch that is isolated from the network, you can do similar with workstation

[dezt]

Right then, i'll give vmware a try.

 

@Chris: I need to learn about DNS, I seem to only know the bare minimum to get by, where as I would prefer to know a lot more about it.

 

Thanks for the advice.

[CyberNerd]

I need to learn about DNS

 

some good links in here:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System

 

http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/sw/bind/

[ChrisH]

I highly recommend you get this book as well for a good overall picture of everything.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0782141307/qid=1141981429/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_3_1/203-3204427-1525534

[SpuffMonkey]

Another nice VMWare "feature" is here

 

http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/community.html

 

Lots of pre configured setups you can just load into VMW - and lots more to come.

[dezt]

Cheers for that Chris, got 1 on order now