How do I build a computer lab.

[joe]

I don't know anything about vmware but I heard it works great to build a home lab. I'm just looking for something to play around with and learn windows 2008 better. I'm taking a computer course so I need a lab to test in. I heard with vmware that I can run more than one server on a single physical computer. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[chris12]

I use Microsoft virtual pc 2007 on my laptop its very simple to use and configure.

[jason]

vmware is great for lab environments. There are several virtual platforms that you can use. VMware ESXi 3.5 requires server hardware to run, and requires more knowledge to setup and configure. With ESXi you get the best performance out of your virtual machines out of any virtual platform. If you have x64bit hardware you can use VMware ESXi 4, both versions have a trimmed down free version that can be downloaded from vmware. If you don't have any server hardware you can purchase an HP DL380 G3 or G4 relatively inexspensivly on ebay.

You can also get away with a much simplar virtual platform using VMware Server, VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Virtual server. These will still allow you to virtualize several machines but will not provide the performance that ESXi can bring.

[chris12]

Thanks I think I'm going to try Microsoft virtual PC since I'm not that technical.