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Welcome to what used to be my home computer LAB/LAN when I lived in
Sarasota, Florida. I scaled down substantially once I finished the
Microsoft certification tracks and even further when I moved back to
South Florida in 2001. I spent over five years in Sarasota working
for a VAR and trying to run a computer consulting business. This home based computer lab is where I
spent the majority of my "I'm in the nerd zone" time preparing for my
initial Microsoft certification classes, taking care of clients, hiding
from the psychotic girlfriend / business partner or just keeping up to
date with the ever-changing world of technology.
As you can see from the three pictures below I had a rather complex home computer lab with plenty of hardware and software to duplicate and practice any of the labs presented in the Microsoft classes. When I was a Microsoft Trainer, previous students usually asked me... "Do I really need an elaborate home computer lab setup to study for my Microsoft certifications?".... the definitive answer back then was maybe... now the answer is a definitive NO, thanks to VIRTUALIZATION!
You can study for IT certifications with a single high-end system, assuming it has ample horsepower and memory. A serous student can be more efficient with the duplication of lab assignments with maybe two systems that meet the hardware requirements of running virtualization software from Microsoft or VMware. With hardware costs so low these days it doesn't take much to build a couple of systems for study purposes, check out eBay for some really low system prices. My original home computer lab was a small scale Client/Server based network of over ten physical systems including, 4 servers, 5 desktops and 2 laptops using Windows NT 4.0 Server, Windows 2000 Professional and Windows 2000 Advanced Server in both mix and native mode network configurations. Two domains on two subnets are separated by a Windows 2000 multi-Nic Server with RRAS configured as a software router. The lab simulation subnet is in Windows 2000 Native Mode running Active Directory, DFS and Dynamic DNS (DDNS). The subnet is constantly changing to mirror the labs found in the Microsoft MOC courses. These days in Boca Raton, the home lab is quite small in size, yet many times the muscle all packed in a slim black and silver box. My current lab environment runs on a single Dell PowedEdge 2950 with quad 2.0 GHz processors, 24 gigs of memory, 2TB of shared storage on a ReadyNAS NV+ and 1TB of RAID 5 local storage. The OS of choice is VMware ESXi 4.0 with a total of 8 VM's running Windows 2008 R2 / Windows XP and Windows 7. An un-racked, yet fully functioning Dell PowedEdge SC1425 server can also be used as a stiff, yet very warm and friendly bed for your favorite kitty cat.... here kitty, kitty! Click on any picture below for a larger view... |
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