Home Laboratory guide

This is my home laboratory network. This guide is for starters who needs some idea on how to start their laboratory.

I have two machines, (Heimdall and Fenrir). Both of them are running on Windows 7 and has Vmware Workstation 9 on it.

If you can notice, Heimdall connects to the internet via wireless on our home router (192.168.0.1). This happened because the wireless router is placed on another room.

Fenrir is a desktop and has no wireless network. A gigabit switch connects both Heimdall and Fenrir.

I have deployed a Virtual Router (FreeSCO) that provides routes from 192.168.0.1 (our home network) and 192.168.1.1 (laboratory network). Used this configuration to test FreeSCO and to provide the internet connection to my laboratory.

Virtual machines will be on 192.168.1.x /24 network and will use 192.168.1.1 as their gateway.

Heimdall is my ROG machine and Fenrir is the esxi whitebox. I have removed ESXI for now and will do a nested esxi later.

Here are the specs for both machines:

https://onetechday.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/hardware/

Future plans is to get a NAS and eventually another machine.

More to come,

Exchange Server 2010 SP1: Installation

Exchange Server 2010 is the Microsoft product that provides email, calendar and contacts to end user.

Exchange Server

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/en-us/exchange-server.aspx

 

On this guide, we will be Installing Exchange Server 2010 SP1 on a laboratory environment. All Exchange Server roles will be installed on one machine, Server1. We will also use Windows 8  Release preview and Outlook 2010 as our client.

Architecture

Software Requirements

Install the following prerequisite

• · .NET Framework 3.5
• · Remote server Administration Tools
• · IIS
•          IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility
•          IIS 6 Management Console
•          IIS 6 WMI Compatibility
•          Basic Authentication
•          Windows Authentication
•          Digest Authentication
•          Dynamics Content Compression
•          Static Content Compression
• · Desktop Experience
• · Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API, Core Runtime 64-bit.
•          http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=180957.
• · Microsoft Server Speech Platform Runtime (x64).
•          http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=180958.
• · Microsoft Office 2010 Filter Packs.
•          http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=191548

Step by step guide

1. Prepare the schema. Launch the installer on Server1. Open a command prompt as administrator. Navigate to the Exchange 2010 Installer and type the following command.

setup /prepareschema

2. Prepare Active Directory

setup /preparead /organizationname:virtuallab

Virtuallab is the Organization Name

3. Prepare Domain

setup /preparedomain

4. Navigate on the Exchange 2010 SP1 Installer. Double Click Setup.exe and

Click Step 3: Choose Exchange Language Option

5. Click Install only languages from the DVD

6. Click Step 4: Install Microsoft Exchange

7. Click Next

8. Accept the License Agreement. Click Next

9. Enable / Disable Exchange Error Reporting feature. Click Next

10. Click Custom Exchange Server Installation. Click Next

11. Select all the Server Role (Mailbox, Client Access, Hub Transport and Unified Messaging Role). On Production Environment, Exchange Server role is separated for scalability and for high availability. Click Next.

12. On the Client Settings, Click No. Click Next. We will only install Outlook 2010 on this laboratory.

13. Click Next

14. Define the Customer Experience Improvement Program. On this laboratory, I wont be joining the program at this time. Click Next

15. Prerequisite will be checked. If everything is Green, Click Install.

16. Click Finish

Exchange 2010 Management Console

 

Next is to configure Exchange Server 2010 to route emails to the internet, Configure the Client and some administration job. We will also test some functionality and features of Exchange Server 2010.

Cheers!