You started out in a better position that I did. I had no experience or exposure but understood the concepts. I used the URL that aravinds3107 provided to setup my lab. Here are a few things that might help you as you setup on your home system that I found using Boerlowie's great lab guide.
1. Part 2 the Hardware: I would go with a minimum of 120 GB SSD and if you can afford it go with 200 GB. I have 16 GIG of memory and I should have gone with 32. Go with what you can afford and 16 is the minimum in my opinion. If your system is greenfield, I install the operating system on my HDD which I place as C: and use SSD as E. Once the OS is installed, I turn off auto OS updates, create a shared folder and down load all of the images that I need for VCP lab and place on HDD. I then use EaseUS Todo backup to backup the base HDD and SSD.
2. Part 3 Workstation 8 - I used 9 and you will be able to get through this easily. Somethings are default in 9 but you will see that as you work through it.
3. Part 4 Base Template - Go with workstation 8. If you do not have a lot of disk space go with standard windows 8 r2 install. I use bridged so I can register windows. However, I do not update windows....I want to keep the image as small as possible. For .NET Framewok use only the sub category. Stay away from potential IIAS issues. After you disable IE ESC I then also disable security. No need in a lab and run into ping and/or dns issues. I also download and install Firefox and Chrome so it is part of the base image. You will not be able to shrink VMware Tools as it shows in the guide. Instead, open a command prompt and C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\vmwaretoolboxcmd disk shrink c:\. Once that is completed. Shutdown windows and right click the template > manage > clean up disks. This will help reduce the template size. Once that is complete, relaunch the vm.
4. Part 6 Domain Controller: I use bridge to start with to register windows then I change to the vmnet I am using. Remember to turn off security for domain once it is a domain.
5. Part 7 SQL Server: I do not install it. I use vCenter simple install and use the SQL database it creates. So I skip Part 7.
6. Part 8 vCenter: Since I did not install SQL, I ignore those steps. I use the simple install which installs everything you need for vCenter.
7. My lab is built and ready. I use EaseUS backup to backup my SSD. This way, I can do a restore and be back to baseline lab more quickly than rebuilding fro scratch.
8. Part 10-12 If you have not done these before or are not comfortable, you can install them. But once you start going through your lab and training/learning, get rid of them so you can build them based on what you are learning.
9. Use Configuring VMware Workstation 8 Networking for Nested VM’s | Virtualized Geek for your network. It works great. If you want your VMs inside of ESXi to have internet access, use NAT there instead.
I hope this helps and good luck!!!
