Windows Server Network Simulator

[lino124]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone can please suggest a good Network Simulator for Windows server Practice Purpose. I am limited in hardware and i want to practice windows server Installation, administration, maintenance etc etc. Can i accomplish this with a Simulator and one day put it in practice in real cooperate environment? If so please help with guide and suggestion.

Thank u all

[DaveLembke]

I use Virtual PC 2007 for all my tinkering with simulated systems. You can create multiple virtual systems networked together on a virtual network ( hardware resources permitting ) on a single system. With a system with say 4GB of RAM running Windows XP Pro, you could have say  4 copies of Windows Server 2003 running side by side with the native Win XP Pro OS in a configuration of 512MB-768MB Ram per virtual Windows Server 2003 that is running. Your CPU should be at least a Dual-core or it will be pegged around 100% to keep the juggle of 1 native (real) OS + 4 virtual OS's running concurrently.

Virtual PC 2007 is free and comes in 32-bit and 64-bit option. There is also VMware, but I am not sure of VMware is still free or not, as for I prefer the VPC2007 for ease of use. If you were to want to run Linux Servers Virtual, you would probably want to check into VMware as for Microsoft's VPC 2007 doesnt play well with Linux and its virtual hardware drivers it sets up. It can be done, but I havent had an easy install of a Linux distro on VPC.

[lino124]

DaveLembke thank you so much its sounds promissing i I'll give it a try on VPC2007 and will get back with any issue and the experience.

[lino124]

I have downloaded and installed VPC2007, only to find out that my Laptop HP Pavillion dv6000 does not have Hardware-Assisted Virtulization. I would like to know if I can still use this software to accomplish what I want? Another thing I am trying to install win srv2003 r2 using a CD or ISO the virtual software does not detects any of that, and I get the following error Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media In selected boot device.

[drivenbywhat]

The hardware assisted virtualization should only really be for 64bit systems. Meaning if your host os is 64bit you won't be able to run a 64bit guest. But you can run 32bit guest.

As for it not detecting the ISO & CD there is an option in the menu of vpc to select ISO / CD to boot from. You'll have to search for this option & set it to boot from what you want. Then do a restart of the vm & it should pick up.

Good luck.

[lino124]

Thank you all for your input,
After Struggling with VPC2007 I decided to download and try a 30 days free version of VMware Workstation 7 and this seems to be doing exactly what I was looking for, I will use it for training purpose during these 30 days when the free license expire I’ll get back to Windows VPC2007. So far VMware is doing its job.

On the other hand I appreciate if someone posted some tips to successfully run a Domain with at least 3 servers and 5 clients. I tend to run, (DC, Exchange 2003 and File Server) all server OS is W2K3 and XP on Clients, I want to perform all this on My Laptop's Virtual Machine assuming its in a real corporate world

Will get back with more feedbacks

[michaewlewis]

I'm curious about why you would want to run a simulation with old technology. Why XP and 2003? Since it's just a simulation, download the trials for Windows 7 and 2008 R2.
About running vpc2007 on your laptop.... you don't need hardware virtualization to run vpc 2007 or virtual server 2005, you just need it to run the latest version: windows virtual pc. Did you try it and it didn't work?
Another good alternative, if you ever get hardware that supports virtualization, is Hyper-V Server 2008R2. It's free and you can manage it with an MMC snap-in in Vista or Win7.

[lino124]

Michaewlewis thanks for the input, the main reason of using old platform is that, i haven't got hold of the new windows platform, i tried downloading windows server 2008 but my Internet Connection is limited, so for now i am stack with the old platform. As to VPC2007 i was using a wrong boot media, no wonder i was getting boot error messages, but now i am still exploring VMware as i am preparing myself to get a High Speed Internet Connection to start downloading all these trails.

Thanks i realy appreciate for the contribution