My home lab

by | Jul 26, 2020 | HomeLab | 0 comments

Couple words about my home lab.

I decided to write this post to share with you some information about my home lab and how it’s built and describe to process what I build my lab.

Last time I decided to sell some devices and buy a new one – to have four similar devices and what is most important – it’s not taking much of space and it’s quiet. Why? It is stored under my desk 😀

Ok, so let’s start from the beginning.

I have four devices:

  • HP Prodesk 600 G2 DM
  • HP Elitedesk 705 G2 DM
  • HP Prodesk 600 G1 DM
  • HP Prodesk 600 G1 DM

And one more – Synology DS620Slim as NAS storage.

Everything is connected to Mikrotik hAP ac², which has a different subnet for my lab.

Let’s talk about the specifications of those machines:

  • HP Prodesk 600 G1 DM – 8GB of RAM, i5-4570T, 120GB of SSD disk and this machine is named: HV01
  • HP Prodesk 600 G1 DM – 8GB of RAM, i5-4570T, 120GB of SSD disk with name – HV02
  • Hp Prodesk 600 G2 DM – 16GB of RAM, i3-6100T, 2x250GB of SSD Disks – with name HV03
  • HP EliteDesk 705 GB DM – 8GB of RAM, AMD PRO A6-8500B processor with 120GB of SSD disk and it’s named HV04
  • Finally, I will have connected Synology as a HyperVisior where will be installed other virtual machines named HV05

What with the roles of those devices?

  • HV01 will have installed Windows Server Standard with GUI with Hyper-V role. On this Hyper-V I will create three machines:
    • Windows Server Standard AD DS + DNS (named HV01-M01)
    • Windows Server Standard with GUI for AAD Connect (named HV01-M02)
    • Windows Server Standard with GUI for WAC – Windows Admin Center (HV01-M03)
  • HV02 will have installed Windows Server Standard with GUI with Hyper-V role. On this Hyper-V I will create only one machine:
    • Windows Server Standard with GUI for SCCM installation with (HV02-M01)
  • HV03 – this will be Windows Server Standard with GUI with Hyper-V role installed. On these machines, I will have test machines with Windows 10 / Windows Server to work with Intune and SCCM.
    • Name convention – *HV03-M**.
  • HV04 – it’s a “bare-metal” machine with physical TPM 2.0 – this allows me to deploy AutoPilot / SCCM lab scenarios that need physical TPM 2.0. This machine will be usually Windows 10.
  • HV05 – I decided to create on beginning two machines on this Synology:
    • HV05-01 – Installed Windows Server without GUI to replicate AD DS + DNS
    • HV05-02 – Installed Without Server without GUI to install WDS (Windows Deployment Services) and allow to install images without using pen drives / working with MDT.

As you can see – there is no WSUS role on any of these machines. I need to think about buying 16GB of RAM and replace it on HV02, so on this machine will be two virtual machines.

Ok, we have described my infrastructure, but what is a general-purpose for that blog post?

I want to create another series of posts (one more, yes, but maybe this one I will finish :/) where I’m describing how you can create a powerful home lab for SCCM and Intune.

That is the general purpose of this series.

I will be updating this post when I create any new posts about my home lab.

Jakub Piesik

Jakub Piesik

Microsoft 365 Consultant

I’m writing not only about Intune and Windows 365. I’m writing about everything what I leared previously and want to share with you!

#security #microsoft365 #intune #windows365 #powershell #automation 🙂