Hardware required for 3 virtual installs to learn Active Directory?

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NetTechie

Limp Gawd
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Jan 10, 2014
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The book I ordered says it will require 2 installs of windows 8, and 1 of server 2012, all running at once to learn Group Policy and Active Directory. The book recommends running VMware Workstation for virtualization, but makes no mention of the amount of ram required to do this. How much is enough? Would 8gb work? Also, would a Core i5 2.4ghz work? I am looking at setting this up on a laptop I ordered for $200 on ebay, and the ram would cost $60 to upgrade it. The reason I want to do it on a laptop is that then I could take it with me and work on learning Group Policy elsewhere, besides at home.

The laptop has a 160gb hard drive, which may be too small for this. Would I need a hard drive, if this system is even able to run 3 virtual installs? It has Windows 7 installed, as the OS that I would use for the virtualization software. The purpose of the installs is 1 for management of the server, 1 for the server, and 1 as the client.

VMware Workstation costs $187. He says you could also use something else to run the virtualization, like Hyper-V on windows 8. What effect on the setup does the virtualization software have? Are some more efficient? Why buy it?

I'm just wondering if it can be done on this laptop, with it's maximum ram of 8gb. And what else do you think I would need to do it?
 
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A dual core CPU and 8 GB is fine for a test lab. Just set each VM to have 1 CPU and 2GB of ram.

160GB is fine as well. Just use thin provisioned disk (the default).
 
I think you could actually pull it off; memory management is key though. For messing around, I would try out VirtualBox, assign 1.5GB to each 8 VM, and 3.5GB to the 2012 VM. 35GB HDD to each 8 VM and if you can spare it since the laptop is used for other things, at least 40GB to the 2012 VM. I am actually not sure what a fresh install of 2012 occupies with ADDS. You may have to pop a different hard drive into the laptop, install Hyper-V Core 2012 and virtualize that way. Perhaps RSAT on a different LAN computer to manage it.
 
PliotronX said:
Perhaps RSAT on a different LAN computer to manage it.
Click to expand...

I'm setup at home with a handful of computers, the goal with this would be to be able to work at say a coffee shop away from home. So running something off the lan I don't think that would work.

Upgrading the hard drive seems a must, I just priced out 1tb drives and I can get one for $70 so that seems a good investment for this. It would allow me to run other virtual installs (not at the same time) to test out XP and Vista for example as clients.

Any input on what the advantage of paying for VMware Workstation would be? I'd probably start with a free one like Virtualbox to test, but buying Workstation is not outside of my budget if there would be a good reason? I guess I know very little about one vs another on virtualization softwares. Server 2012 R2 Standard would allow only 2 virtualizations would be my concern with doing it with Hyper-V.

Edit: Apparently guest OS's with their own license (evaluation in my case) will run on Hyper-V, so I could run as many as needed. I read some articles on VMware Workstation, it sounds like a powerful tool. Virtualbox might be ok, but I'm still debating if I would benefit enough from Workstation to make it worth buying it.
 
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I've been doing some thinking, and perhaps I could run just 2 virtual machines running both windows 8.1 pro and server 2012 r2, as long as the operating system running the vm's is windows 8.1 pro. Then I'd have the total of 3 I needed, though the main OS would be tied to the domain for the virtual server's domain controller (i.e. it would not be available at the time of boot). Not sure if that would even work, but might as well mention the idea. This would free up ram and hard drive space to have just 2 vm's.

Edit: Hmm, perhaps if I set the os running the vm's to be server 2012 R2 with the AD DC, then the vm's could boot up and connect to the DC, and I'd have the three installs needed for the book. This would limit the use of the laptop to lab use, as I doubt server 2012 r2 would make a good end-user os for internet browsing etc. But maybe if needed I could do this.

Edit2: I tested my theory above on a Core 2 Duo desktop machine I have with 8gb of ram, it's consuming 5gb total with 2 vms of windows 8 and the machine itself running windows server 2012 r2. Running 2 vms on Hyper-V and setup with an internal network for AC DC, it seems to be work ok. I could probably fit one more VM on there if needed and run them all at once, just have to be careful not to actually try to use them all at the same time (core usage would overload probably), or boot them all at once.

Thanks for the encouraging feedback on this idea, I'm excited what can be done with old computers for a test lab! It works!
 
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I've been doing some research, and it seems that the biggest issue with Virtualbox I've spotted is it does not manage ram as well, which means it may run slower or freeze on older systems (what I'm dealing with here).

Guess the best bet would be to run everything on Hyper-V, or buy VMware Workstation, which is now $250 (it was 25% off when I posted for $187).
 
At home I just use MS Hyper-V on my i5 laptop with 16 GB of memory. My virtual machines live on an old 256 GB Samsung SSD in a USB 3 external case.
 
Running it on an external is a great idea. Thanks for the post.

I decided to buy an external enclosure:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00P1S5IWG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And run a SSD 250gb hard drive in it off of eSATAp, as the laptop has an eSATAp port (it's usb ports are 2.0 so that would be real slow). Hopefully 250gb will be enough for my virtualized OS's.

I'm still limited by 8gb of ram, but hopefully it will work. As I can't afford to buy VMware Workstation right now, I think I'm going to run Windows 8.1 Pro with Hyper-V Client for the VM's. The processor on the laptop has EPT (aka SLAT), so Client will work I hope. Windows Server's version of Hyper-V does not require SLAT apparently, no idea why there is that difference.

Details on the Windows 8 SLAT requirement for Hyper-V:
https://social.technet.microsoft.co...dows-8-why-slat-requirement?forum=w8itprovirt
 
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@NetTechie: If you have hardware at home you can always VPN or remote into your lab as well. 99% of the time you'll be remoted into a server that you might not even know where it resides. Very rarely will you have console access to machines you're working on.

If you can get Win 8 on that laptop I would definitely suggest using Hyper-V. It has the ability to use dynamic memory management for your VMs if they are setup with Gen 2 (only Win 8 and Server 2012) and can greatly reduce the footprint needed to run them. If you use Server 2012 as your primary OS or Windows 10 TP those should be able to work the same way.

I run Win 8 with 2 Win 8 installs on top of a dual core i7 laptop with 8GB of memory. (3 total installs) I allow the Vms to use up to 2.4GB of ram each, but have them set for dynamic memory. They start up using what they can so up to 2.4GB but will quickly give back space as needed. They can easily sit in the background with only around 1.2GB used and do what they need to do. While you're using a VM it has the ability to use more memory but when you're not it can give back resources. If I get a lot of tabs open in the browser I can push the total ram usage of the system to around 7GB. If you're light on the tabs you should be able to wedge an install of S2012 into the remaining space. When I tried booting a 3rd VM the rest of the setup gave back enough resources to fit all 3 Windows 8 installs into 4GB.

You could just use your "client" machine as the host for the other two VMs as well and that would help out. There's also a lot of flexibility with the networking so you can set it up as needed.
 
I run a few vms off my laptop, just a t420 w/ 8gb ram, 240gb ssd, 1tb spinner. It isn't that bad. For 3 vms, a faster disk will be more beneficial than more ram or cpu imo.
 
bman212121 said:
@NetTechie: If you have hardware at home you can always VPN or remote into your lab as well. 99% of the time you'll be remoted into a server that you might not even know where it resides. Very rarely will you have console access to machines you're working on.
Click to expand...

I have comcast residential for internet, according to this page (a quick google result), it is against our agreement to host a VPN off of the connection.

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/news/comcast.htm

So while I could do it at home on the LAN, if I wanted to access my lab computers from a coffee shop I'd have violated terms of service of our internet package. :( Getting my internet shut off would not be fun, but thanks for the thought though. If I had DSL, I believe DSL would allow a VPN as it is a dedicated line. However cable is a lot faster than DSL for the same price.

I might as well mention I have a dual processor Xeon X5570 with 8 cores and 24gb of ram which would work nicely as a host machine if I could access it over a VPN.
 
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sc0tty8 said:
I run a few vms off my laptop, just a t420 w/ 8gb ram, 240gb ssd, 1tb spinner. It isn't that bad. For 3 vms, a faster disk will be more beneficial than more ram or cpu imo.
Click to expand...

The laptop I ordered is a Thinkpad T410, so close to what you have (i5-520M is a slower generation though). When I found out I have to put a bunch of ISO images on the hard drive for each install on Hyper-V Gen2, I decided to pull a 128gb SSD from a computer I wasn't using, and buy a 2tb hard drive instead for the laptop, which is SATA III (computer only supports SATA II), but has 32mb of cache so hopefully it'll be quicker than the 8mb cache SATA II generation. I'll run the SSD in an eSATA enclosure, using the eSATAp port (hopefully eSATAp is as fast as running it internally). Worst case, I did order a drive caddy for where the CD-Rom goes so I could install it internally if I have to as a secondary drive.
 
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Yeah the drive caddy is handy as hell. I've done this on the last three laptops I've owned. I mean, when was the last time one used optical media?
 
I played with Dynamic Memory in Hyper-V, once installed Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 Enterprise evaluation versions will boot up with 512mb of ram assigned to each install. I can fit all 3 in 4gb of ram, and use them. So with 8gb it should run more than 3 virtual machines.

I also got the trial of VMware Workstation, and it will also run all 3 at once on 4gb of ram, each assigned 512mb of ram. However, I ran into problems installing firefox as the ram is not dynamic on Workstation, it would hang up and not finish installing. I upped it to 1gb and firefox installed no problem. Because the ram is not dynamic it doesn't allocate more ram to the vm that needs it apparently. Oh well.

VMware Workstation has so many nice features I decided to buy it, even though the 25% off special ended. I got it for 15% off yesterday as they had a special for random customers, and I was randomly selected. So it cost $212 plus taxes, about $228 (pricey little program, considering Hyper-V is free with Windows 8.1 Pro). I got it because I like how it organizes the machines into tabs, and resizes the desktop to the window size (once you install the Tools on it). Without tabs, as Hyper-V is, it's harder to switch back and forth between VMs, in some cases I couldn't remember which VM I was using on Hyper-V because it is so easy to click the wrong one in the taskbar. Basically a risk I could be on the wrong machine when changing a setting, like specifying the static IP etc. Also, overall I would say Workstation is better designed in general for small screens like my 14.1 inch laptop screen.

I'm amazed that 4gb is enough to run 3 machines, plus the OS running the virtualizer. Kind of unexpected. Anyway, my ram came and Amazon sent me the wrong one (a single 8gb stick instead of the kit of two 4gb sticks). So today I should be getting the right ram I hope, and be able to try 8gb.

Edit: Amazon sent the right ram this time, adjusted the settings now it's taking around 7gb of ram, though it goes up and down so I guess VMware uses some kind of dynamic memory as it's not using the full amount I assigned.
 
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NetTechie said:
I'm amazed that 4gb is enough to run 3 machines, plus the OS running the virtualizer. Kind of unexpected. Anyway, my ram came and Amazon sent me the wrong one (a single 8gb stick instead of the kit of two 4gb sticks). So today I should be getting the right ram I hope, and be able to try 8gb.
Click to expand...

Yeah I see a lot of people go totally overkill on resources. With virtualization my experience has been to provide faster IO over more cpu or ram. My Vms are all hosted on fast(er) disks and it has been pleasurable.

VMWare workstation is very nice, it is also a very mature platform so support should be fantastic, and the experience just the same.

Win 10 will require 2gb of startup in order for the install to function correctly, but otherwise, I do 1024 for startup and have the dynamic range from 512-4096.
 
Yup, the more I use VMware Workstation, the more I don't like Hyper-V. A barebones server oriented virtualizer which doesn't offer much in terms of the interface. Free with Windows 8.1 Pro, I guess you can't expect much.
 
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