VMWare for Home Test Lab

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Hi Guys,
I just need some clarification on my VMWare situation. I know we have a few VMWare Guru's floating about so thought I would try my luck

I have a HP Z220 Workstation, 1 250GB SSD, 2 internal 1 TB Disks and 32GB of RAM.
I have a Internet connection supplied by Sky with a Wireless Card in the PC in the study upstairs.

The main question is Can I build out a Domain using VMWare Player using Server 2008 R2 without any other hardware required? I ideally want the VMWare domain to not affect the Main PC as it were, hence why I have created everything in VMWare.

Spent last night watching a lot of YouTube Videos, all of which say I need external Routers etc. Now, I have managed to run this all on VMWare before, but was never able to access the internet. I am trying to get the whole shebang up and running on VMWare so any comments or points would be great.

Thank you,
Ron

 

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Ron,

It depends on how you want to do this, yes you can have "everything" running on your laptop without issue, infact I have a lab running on my laptop with no issues what so ever.

The question is, do you want the virtualised infrastructure running on the same subnet as you're currently using or something else?

If you want it on the same subnet then you can pretty much do it straight away, you would be using your laptop to act as a bridge between the VM network and your lan, if you want it completely isolated then you're looking at using a small router VM to act as your device to connect the different networks.

If I were you I would probably have a look at Autolab to do the full automated installation for you, it has a great guide to read through that explains what you need to do from a networking perspective on Workstation as well, the only downer is that it's fully automated (DC, vCenter, ESXi, etc) but it does everything, IP addressing, DNS registrations for your automated infrastructure etc. It has the router and NAS already part of the package as well but is definitely aimed at VMware vSphere labs rather than just a Microsoft lab.

 

Hi Simon,

Thank you for the prompt response. I am looking to add SCCM 2012 so will go with AutoLab for that I think.
Thanks very much for your input and advice.

Ron

 

No problem, any questions please don't hesitate to ask.

You may also be interested in a couple of articles I posted about installing SCCM 2012 in a home lab that I did recently.

http://www.everything-virtual.com/?s=sccm&submit.x=0&submit.y=0

 

Thank you Simon.
I have just been going through Auto Labs and it seems great.

I will check out the articles before I start on SCCM

Thanks once again, the advice and guidance from CF never ceases to amaze me.

 

Hi @simon,

Just finished the week long SCCM Course and I LOVED it. Really in-depth, really intuitive.

I have all the Study material so will be going through it all again but as I say, REALLY enjoyed the whole course.

 

I have to be honest and say I found it easier to implement my own lab for SCCM because it gave me a greater insight to the whole setup.