We all know how vital continuous education is for our careers. By better understanding current technologies and trends it can help us stay more secure at our current employers and help us find better jobs.
Unfortunately it seems as though our employers don’t always understand, or due to our work load, we just don’t have as much time as we would like to have to be able to learn about new technologies.
One way I personally found that has helped me tremendously was by having my own personal lab at home. A home lab allowed me to dedicate the time I needed to put into practice what I couldn’t at work. Because of this it also helped me get vital certifications and develop a better technical understanding and capabilities.
This how-to is a guide for those of you who are interested in building an effective lab at low cost while still being able to learn vital skills and put into practice what you are wanting to learn.
Step 1: Hardware
This is usually the first step. A lot of IT Professionals I know like to focus more on the hardware then anything else. But to be honest this is just a first step and its always something you can upgrade or replace later. Don’t hold yourself back by making yourself save your money so you can by state of the art hardware. Instead focus on what your budget allows now. Windows Server requirements are pretty light and this is only a lab environment so you don’t have to worry about any kind of real load on the server.
System Requirements and Installation Information for Windows Server 2012 R2 | Microsoft Learn
Many times a spare workstation or laptop will do. You can take advantage of online deals through various manufacturer outlet sites, or even used systems such as what you can find on ebay or craigslist. If you want to go new, all major manufacturers have their own type of low power inexpensive home server. Or you can do like me and build your own. I built my own lab hardware using spare parts I had laying around and a few items I ordered off an online retailer. Total I spent less than $300 on it.
Their are also several great threads in the community on this subject. I encourage you to do some searching to find what would be the best solution for you.
A good rule of thumb is get yourself at least a dual core system and 8GB of ram. The more memory the better, but you can always put more in later.
Make yourself a budget and stick to it. Find the best hardware you can in that budget. As your skills increase and you save, you can always upgrade your hardware for more and better capabilities.
Step 2: Making the Most of your Hardware
So now your have your lab box or boxes. Now you need to take advantage of what you have as much as possible. You need to be able to create production like scenarios and work with multiple types of tasks.
Whats the best way to do this you ask? Easy! Virtualize!
Every production environment takes advantage of virtualization so your lab shouldn’t be any different. It gives you much greater flexibility in what you can do since you can run multiple servers and client OS’s on your hardware. Not to mention you can take snapshots so if you mess up you can perform quick restores! Lastly it adds more value to your skill set since every employer demands we know and understand virtualization.
Thankfully Microsoft gets this and gives us Hyper-V for free to download and use. Its available for use in both home as well as production environments.
Microsoft Evaluation Center
Step 3: Time for fun!
Now that we have our hardware and hyper-v, our virtualization platform, installed and ready to go. We need to look at installing some servers/clients so we have systems to tinker with.
Microsoft has provided a couple great resources for us to use. Such as MSDN for IT Professionals, Action Pack for IT Service Providers, and FREE evaluation copies for personal education use.
You can download the educational Eval copies such as Windows 8.1, SQL 2012, Exchange 2013, and Server 2012 R2 among many others here:
Microsoft Evaluation Center
Step 4: Lets Start Learning
Now that we have our lab system up and running lets start developing a plan.
If you are training for a Cert they make it easy. Almost all certificate training books and courses give you lab scenarios that you can use.
If you are like me and have a very limited budget, make your own scenarios! This can be a great challenge and learning opportunity in and of itself!
How can you come up with scenarios?
– Spiceworks Community Discussion Groups –
The spiceworks community is a great place to start. Perhaps you read a thread in the Windows Server Group on how a Spicehead is trying to implement DFS, Hyper-V Replica, Storage Spaces, etc. Why not try setting this up in your lab?
– Vendor Pages in the Spiceworks Community –
Vendor pages are a great way to come up with scenarios. We have a lot of great vendors here in the community that are active on their vendor page posting new technologies and capabilities.
For example I recently posted about the new features in Windows Server 2012 R2. You can go to that post and view all the new features which link to their respective technet articles.
http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/403763-the-top-10-2-reasons-to-upgrade-to-windows-server-2012-r2
– MVP Blog Posts —
Microsoft MVP’s and Technet Blogs are a great learning resource that you can leverage. Many post often with great detail on various subjects. Here are a few of my personal favorites to follow:
http://blogs.technet.com/
Matt Hester's WebLog | Microsoft Learn
Archived MSDN and TechNet Blogs | Microsoft Learn
— Microsoft Virtual Academy —
Microsoft Virtual Academy is a great learning resource for us because its all FREE! And best part is its kept up to date. For example would you like to learn about Powershell 3.0 or Windows Server 2012 R2?
Training | Microsoft Learn
Please remember this how-to is a guide to help point you in the right direction not rules that you have to follow. Remember to have fun and keep learning! The ability for us to adapt to new technologies and learn is the best part of being an IT Professional!
Have your own home lab setup? Have any suggestions or feedback on this how-to? Please be sure to post your comments!
![\"97c6a01295a2068a93539b333a4b8e877759750778378762456033ff2f67be30_2micros.png\"](\"https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/spiceworks/optimized/4X/d/3/7/d37af355f48f76b4b8f60aa2f9a459f874713ea0_2_283x500.png\")