MCITP Server Admin hardware/

Dashik

Dashik

Dashik

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Location
Dunbar
Hi guys,

For a variety of reasons I need to recertify back into IT.

Im literally at the start of properly looking into this but figure someone might save me a lot of time and effort if they have done somethign similar and are generous enough to share there experiance :D

So in the long run I want to be doing Server Administration and support and setup of MS Exchange and Active Directory and VOIP. In central Scotland that should (with previous experience) make me reasonably employable :D

So to start with I need to get some additional hardware so I can setup and practice at home.

I have a beast of a games machine so that's not too bad.
Cable broadband with netgear wired/wireless router


As ever finances are limited ;)

I'm going to do the 3 exams for MCITP Server Administrator first. Followed by Exchange and CCNA then some Viop stuff I think.

Here's the questions.

Can anyone tell me if I need an additional one or two boxes to use for the Server Admin exams? I've been trying to find out but its not very clear and until the materials arrive its hard to get definitive answer.
Can i get away with one box initially and add the second at a later date?


System requirements for Win server 2008 are quite modest.

Processor

• Minimum: 1 GHz (x86 processor) or 1.4 GHz (x64 processor)
• Recommended: 2 GHz or faster
Note: An Intel Itanium 2 processor is required for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems

Memory

• Minimum: 512 MB RAM
• Recommended: 2 GB RAM or greater
• Maximum (32-bit systems): 4 GB (Standard) or 64 GB (Enterprise and Datacenter)
• Maximum (64-bit systems): 32 GB (Standard) or 1 TB (Enterprise and Datacenter) or 2 TB (Itanium-Based Systems)

Available Disk Space

• Minimum: 10 GB
• Recommended: 40 GB or greater

I have 2 24" dell monitors currently and a spare 19" monitor kicking around. A keyboard/mouse switch should sort the access to one or more of the boxes. I Have a spare 500gb hdd kicking around and another under warrenty that can get replaced so im thinking of buying just a box.

So can anyone advise me, do I?

A - Buy 1 or 2 cheap barebone desktop pc's such as http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-269-OK&groupid=43&catid=1817&subcat= and throw a -

cpu, http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-351-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=567
hdd - already have a 500gb kicking around. Also a spare 150gb raptor to be replaced under warrenty.
2 or 4 GB ram - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-096-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813

into the box :D

B - Get an HP Microserver - Will the HP Microserver cope with Server 2008 and be ok for training purposes?

in either case I'll network them through the Netgear router in the short term then pickup some Cisco hardware later on.

As ever thanks in advance for any help :D

James.
 
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Thanks for the reply. Could you be a little more specific please?

I take it its a case of just set the one box up and run several virtual machines all with there own OS and ID's and then just switch between as required? sounds like a neat solution.
 
So Ideally a multicore processor, large chunk of ram and a reasonable HDD, network that to my main pc and run virtual servers on the box using say Virtualbox? Or EXSi :D
 
Ok so I can either build a server from components, or get a brand one, What about the HP Proliant Microserver? I see its available with £100 if ordered today. That might not happen with time constraints.

Another contender is the HP ProLiant ML110 G, its around £200 and would just need some memory.


I'm looking to be to get a box to run both ESXi and Hyper-V as that would make sense.

Long gone are the days of chucking a nic into a desktop box and calling it a server lol D:
 
Oh I'm serious.

I think I could have worded my answer better, I'm looking for a box that is capable of running both Hyper-V or ESXi. Not necessarily at the same time. Its not a problem if the machine needs wiped to run either. So it's looking more like the HP ML110 G6 but I'll go for the dual core version. I don't think I need the Xeon version at twice the price for home training :D
 
s0ck said:
Virtualbox?

Why pay out for (relatively crap) hardware you won't see a return on? Not to mention increased noise and power consumption around the house :)
Click to expand...

I take your point, But I'm thinking £200 ish is a fairly cheap investment in me and I think its fair to say an actual physical network will have its advantages.

I plan to be doing a fair few exams so I'll get plenty of use out of it :D

For one with the two monitors I'll be able to actually see what I'm doing on the other machine(server) as I do it from my pc. also I can upgrade my little router and get practice with that as well :D

In the meantime I'll also do some looking into virtualboxing.
 
Indeed, I've basically more or less made my mind up on getting the HP Proliant 110 G6 and sticking 4Gb ram in to start with on one Dimm then getting more as time goes on, ending up with either 8 or 16 Gb. Also I can chuck HDD's in and I can set it up so that I back my main pc up over the network to them. So that kind of points towards Win2K8R2 with Hyper-V so I can run Virtual machines and also get the use of the spare space on the HDD's for my backup of my main/games pc :D

If it turns out to be noisy I can always stick it in the spare room and WiFi into it and just get a long cat 5 cable for the odd occasion I might need to hardwire into it. I'm just about to redecorate the whole house so I'm thinking of cat5 around the house anyway :D
 
Ok well I just had a rake around, I can get the HP ML110 G5 as a CTO (Config To Order) bare chassis. Crucial do a compatable 4Gb Dimm for about £50 And I have a 500 GB hdd I can use instead of the 250 they supply in the bare server. Then I was thinking of 4 x 500Gb or 4 x 1Tb hdd's.

Can I get away with using 8Gb ram to start with and the 500GB hdd? then Upgrade the ram and add the raid drives soon after?
 
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So Books on there way :D I think then an ML110 G6 with 8Gb ram and the 500 Gb hdd, Maybe a couple of 1Tb hdds, should do me to start with.

Can't seem to find any other decent spec base server for around the £220 plus the memory and hdd's. So I reckon around £400 for the Server, 8Gb and the 2 x 1Tb hdd's is not too bad.

I'm going to see if I can get a Config To Order version with just the DVD and CPU, that will save a few £'s.
 
OK all bought :D ML110 G6, 2 x Samsung F1 1Tb hdd's and 2 x 4Gb Dimms on there way for tommorrow. £434.76 delivered. I pick up another 8Gb ram and a couple of hdd's over the next month :D
 
Ok so server is here, Ive chucked the 8Gb ram in and the 2 x 1Tb hdd's. I've left the 250Gb drive that came with it in and added a spare 500Gb drive I had kicking around. I'm thinking 2K8R2 on the 250Gb. The 2 x 1Tb hdd's for VM's and the spare 500Gb is for a backup of my main games pc C: drive and the servers C: drive and stuff.

Also considering getting ESXi 4.1 on a USB flashdrive as the server has a usb port internally and its like £10 so I would be able to have a choice of booting the server into 2K8R2, ESXi, and VMware along with Hyper-V. so that makes it a VERY flexible box indeed.

I'll add more ram to max it out at 16Gb later this month and then I can see if its worth replacing the 250Gb with something bigger and adding an additional 2 x 2Tb drives so I end up with a 4Tb raid and a large hdd for storage of os and images etc.

All I've got to do in the meantime is clear out and reaarrange my workspace (table in the living room ;)) tommorrow :D

All in this looks like it should be a great machine for labs :D
 
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OK well I've just spent the day rearranging my lab area and I'm currently downloading the Server 2008R2 Hyper-V evaluation to install.

Server is up and running, Just needing the OS sorted and to sort the network connection and I'm off and running.

So Current thinking is2008R2 with Hyper-V for VM's. I've got a bootable Flash Drive with ESXi coming to try that as well.
 
I got the Dual Core G6. I can upgrade the CPU later if I need. Although I don't think I will.

There's a good argument for building your own but I wanted a server that I could also use the remote management functions on. So in the end I think I spent maybe £100 to £150 more and tbh that's not worth worrying about.

Anyway, each to there own. If I wanted I could have used my Gaming PC.

*OVERCLOCKED* Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 4.00GHz / Gigabyte EX58-UD5 Intel X58 Motherboard / Corsair 6GB DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz DDR3 Bundle with 2 x OCZ 120Gb SSD and 2 x 2Tb Hdd, GTX580 etc etc. But I wanted 2 physical machines and the G6 is a reasonably cheap way of doing that.
 
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