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Browlin
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Home Lab

Hi All,


can any one help me on creating Home Lab for learning.


Regards

Browlin

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AndreTheGiant
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If you search on Internet your can find a tons of posts about the home labs.

Mainly you have two options: runs on a Workstation or use a ESXi hosts and runs inside it.

In all cases I suggest to use AutoLab for build your VMs:

http://vinfrastructure.it/2012/05/building-a-vsphere-5-lab/

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro

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AndreTheGiant
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If you search on Internet your can find a tons of posts about the home labs.

Mainly you have two options: runs on a Workstation or use a ESXi hosts and runs inside it.

In all cases I suggest to use AutoLab for build your VMs:

http://vinfrastructure.it/2012/05/building-a-vsphere-5-lab/

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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shaun_collins
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Hello - I recently passed my VCP5 and found the following lab to be invaluable and probably the best I've seen

http://boerlowie.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/building-the-ultimate-vsphere-lab-part-1-the-story

It can all be built under VMware workstation so you don't need tons of resources, one word of warning though, make sure that your host PC is powerful enough to run it!

It covers all the basics and will also help with advanced networking, vMotion, HA, DRS, even FT (although a bit of tinkering is required)

Hope this helps

Shaun

newtovirtualiza
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I have my home lab almost setup and I used "How to setup MVware vSphere Lab in VMware Workstation ?".  It is an ebook that Vladan Seget created, www.vladan.fr - It is lightweight but has all of the bells and whistles you will need.  I augmented it with this vCenter installation, http://www.trainsignal.com/blog/simple-vcenter-5-1-installation - It simplifies the SSO login and does not use a seperate VM for SQL.  Other than that, the lab is basically the same s Boerlowie's.

Good Luck!!!

AndreTheGiant
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For the deployment part consider the http://www.demitasse.co.nz/wordpress2/autolab/

Wonderful for DCA exam, but valuable for each lab building.

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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nickwalt
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I'm a bit surprised that there isn't a forum on Communities dedicated to the discussion of creating virtual labs for those seeking certification and for general learning. A forum would be a good place to post a bunch of stickies to help those putting together the lab.

I want to post a thread to run a Poll and ask about people's experiences when using 16GB RAM vs 32GB RAM in their lab host machine, but cannot see a place to post it up.

Cheers,

Nick

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scott28tt
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The lab discussions are spread around a little, you have a point. As well as the certification areas, you'll find discussions in the Workstation and Fusion areas on running vSphere in VMs on those products.


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nickwalt
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Thank you, Scott. Should I take your response to mean that we'll soon see a new sub-forum appear, maybe at the following location Smiley Wink

Home > VMTN > Training & Certification > Self-Study > Create Your Own Lab

Maybe the following other forums could be relocated to come under Self-Study:

Home > VMTN > Training & Certification > Self-Study > WMware Hands-On Labs (this name and current location is a bit obscure and perhaps could be called VMware Learning Labs)

Home > VMTN > Training & Certification > Self-Study > Study Resources

The Self-Study > Study Resources forum could be both a triage forum, to refer people to other forums on VMTN, such as Nesting, Workstation, Certifications, VMware Hands-On Labs, Create Your Own Labs, and could also include all manner of discussions about:

  • guidance for people to use the Blue Print as a reference and framework as a basis for their learning;
  • study and certification guide books that supplement the Blue Print;
  • lab practice guides that supplement the Blue Print;
  • practice questions for exam prep;
  • references to blogs, and a place for bloggers to participate;
  • other learning techniques and resources.

Let's face it, people are already doing a lot of self-study and really this is the most effective method for the development of long term skills and understanding. It's not like improving the accessibility to self-study information will detract from VMware's own training courses - if that is something that VMware is trying to avoid by not having dedicated self-study forums. On the contrary, I believe supporting grass roots self-study will ultimately channel more people into paid training and education services. It works for Cisco and they provide huge support for self-study.

I just think that self-study could be given much, much better support and visibility on these forums, making it easier to find and participate in topical discussions Smiley Happy

Apologies to the OP for getting a little off-topic.

Cheers,

Nick

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