[JMG]

Hello!

My name is Jonathan,
I'm new here as a member, but I heard a lot about this site!

I finished the MCITP-EA certification not a long time ago, and decided I have to practice what I learned so I don't forget all the stuff I learned...

I'm not exactly practicing my skills in a real environment, so I'm looking for some sort of virtual environment to test my skills.

I have a pretty good PC with an I7 processor, and 12Gigs of RAM, (and a lot of HD's).

Last week I installed WIN8 and discovered it contains the Hyper-V tools, so no need to install VMware/VirtualBOX to run VM's.

I'm looking for some sort of "LABS" like drills, but the problem with the MS labs, is that they cover only some specific issues, and not the whole environment. (eg. installing just DNS role).

Plus - I heard once that there are some scripts that can "mess up" your VM, and then you can practice troubleshooting different problems


anyway - any suggestions on how to efficiently practice my MCITP skills would be great!

THANX in advance!


Jonathan.

[Ossian]

How about setting yourself some goals and setting up an appropriate environment, using MS labs to help you

e.g. Set up a simple domain (1 dc, 1 member server, 1 client)
Add 2 RRAS servers and route between them (plus use the client to VPN in)
Add a DC at the second site
Add a RODC
etc.....

You have enough RAM to probably run 10 1GB machines

Note if metro doesnt float your boat, dual boot to HyperV server and use that to host the VMs

Also it is well worth spending c. $250 on Technet Plus downloads so you can get non-expiring versions of almost every MS product for testing/evaluation

[JMG]

Hi Ossian,

What you gave me here is a GR8 example of what I'm looking for!

During the course I got two "projects" with lots of "goals" to achieve, and it was the best practice ever!

My question is: Where can I find some sort of training site, full of those sets of goals, sorted by difficulty or some other criteria.
(Preferably with solutions to check out later if I get stuck.)

And maybe some other extras - like the scripts that "mess-up" a good working machine - so I could look for some problems and troubleshoot them. (the idea here is that I don't know what's wrong with them)

The biggest problem for me is to think about "reasonable" real-life situations to practice on, and for that I'm looking for some good site to help me up.

Any ideas?


(Thanks!)