Not a whole lot of complication for my little lab. If you don't have the money to bundle up on servers, this lab is fairly easy to pull off on tax return time or you can do what I did. Invest a little here and there in parts and piece it together later. The total cost for all of this runs estimated $4,000. Not bad for... 1, 2, 3, 4.... how many virtual machines simultaneous? I might need to upgrade to an Intel Core i7 for the processing power and Front Side Bus to receive a better latency in VT Performance.

The Hardware

Desktop with Quad-Core Processor
8GB of RAM at 800MHz or better
Fairly decent graphics card always helps support certain features
iSCSI NAS (QNAP 459+ProII) with Write-Cache Disabled

Where to gather information

Microsoft TechNet Account - Access to Unlimited Trial Versions
Microsoft Official Academic Course OR Exam-Prep Guide Books
Technet Library
Good local resource(linux): /usr/share/docs
LinuxManPages.com - Man pages published online (shell command example: man mkfs.ext3)
RedHat & Fedora Documentation

Windows Server 2008 R2 Virtual Lab Guided to MCITP

Headquarters and Branch Office Scenario (note HQ & BR), this scenario covers a lot of ground and typically will provide every experience you really would you need to know to pass the MCSA/MCSE. Click on the picture to view it independently and magnify to see their roles in the domain. I left out any company names so you can use your own imagination. Configuring the NAT Server with a home address which can be interpreted as an ISP Assigned address and assigned DMZ for best test results. Before assigning DMZ, make sure all updates and patches are installed, use a firewall if possible to prevent an unscheduled penetration test to your network.

Using Vmware, will segment 2 virtual networks with a virtual router. I commonly use M0n0wall for a virtual router because its very small and very effective with total 256MB consumption of host memory. In each domain, using a multi-serviced Windows Server 2008 R2 guest, Exchange mail server guest on WS2k8R2, and a Windows 7 guest client.

When Windows Server "8" releases I will try to provide relevant content as soon as possible.

Linux Routing Lab

Typically you need multiple systems, a router and extra networking cables in order to perform these configurations. I'm going to virtualize two separate networks and present a routing Fedora Linux Box. Since the ISP doesn't play nice with SMTP traffic, I will use my own DNS Server within my home network and act as an ISP and a Domain Registrar. Given that opportunity to provide real configuration information on setting up to separate domains with email capabilities and route all of the traffic through my fedora acting as a router. There will be no NAT, these will be connected networks directly using a 192.168.0.0 Network and a 24 bit mask. The only traffic to be blocked as an extra just in case due to the fact that this is not an actual router is UDP Multicasts. Particularly UDP 67 to prevent DHCP deliverance between the networks. One network will use Windows clients with Fedora/Red Hat email server, while the other network is strictly a Linux based network with Ubuntu Clients. Configuration Files will be found upon completion at given links.