your thoughts on using auto lab to setup vsphere5.5 lab?

[ggomez43]

http://www.vhersey.com/2014/03/autolab-with-vsphere-5-5-support/

any negatives to setting up auto lab for vsphere5.5 lab to practive for VCP5?

[RyanH84]

Hi,

I used it with Workstation for my VCAP5-DCA preparation and it was excellent! Make sure you adhere to the guidance on hardware requirements. For my VCAP prep, I purchased a new CPU (i7-3770), Memory (32GB) and SSD (250GB) for my desktop computer to be able to run the lab and it does a brilliant job. I'd imagine if you don't have lots of RAM for multiple hosts running simultaneously, it might be a bit of a pain. Similarly, if you don't have VM's running on SSD you will see dramatic waiting times during the build phase.

I still use it now for testing features and reminding myself how to do certain tasks when I don't have a development environment handy. There are some limitations such as:

1) DPM doesn't really work as I couldn't get WOL to work (workstation issue I think) and there is no remote management card.

2) FT takes a little extra work to get configured, but it does work.

3) Direct I/O and configuring devices for passthrough doesn't work.

Not too many and more than workable. I'd recommend it if you don't want to go spending lots of money on a real test environment!

[Vijaynb]

Hi,

Auto Lab is script based lab tool and it will build the environment  using scripts, hence there is less manual work. If you have less time you can use the same.

if you want to learn how to build the full environment, then build it manually.

Finally there is nothing negative in the Auto lab tool.

Regards,

Vijaynb.

[RyanH84 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I agree with Vijaynb. There is nothing quite like setting up a whole environment from scratch to REALLY learn how it works.

In my example, I was not interested in standing up yet ANOTHER domain  or installing the Windows vCenter again, I wanted something that would get that part done quickly in an automated fashion.

To be fair, once it was built, I did tear some of it down and start from scratch anyway, but only on the VMware side of things - which was the focus for the VCAP. I couldn't give a monkies about building a domain controller

The tool is good and provides alternatives to having a home lab if space/time/resource/money are an issue!

[ggomez43]

Thanks.

I have an HP Proliant DL380 G6 32Gb RAM with ESXi5.5 on SD card and two nested ESXI5.5. I only have local storage and could not run vmotion.

I like the idea of having a physical server and learn stuff vs a PC.

Installing everything makes sense especially if I really want to learn step by steps.

I guess now I have to decide if I want to buy a second server .

[ggomez43]

whats the best way to delete my current ESXi env and just load ESXi again with auto lab?

Just delete my nested ESXI hosts or install a new fresh copy of ESXi?