I have kind of neglected my IT training these past couple of years. As we all know to keep up to speed you really need to put in a little bit extra effort to make sure you are fully up to speed with the greatest and latest technologies. So I have made some investments in resources and I am going to dedicate myself as much as I can to get myself up to speed and master the new technologies. With Windows 2000/2003 I really feel comfortable. The latest generation of server products I don’t feel as comfortable using.
I have just began setting up my lab which runs on the following hardware:
2008 R2 Running Hyper-V
- Custom build using Asus Crossfire II motherboard
- Quad-Core 2.8Ghz AMD Processors
- 8GB RAM
- 2 x 750GB Disks Striped
- Dual NIC’s
HP Proliant ML150 running ESXi Vsphere
- Quad Core 2.0 GHz AMD Processors
- 8GB RAM
- 2 x 500GB Disks
- Single NIC
I have also invested in a few books as well (my bank balance didn’t like these!!
- SAMS Active Directory Domain Services How-to
- Windows Powershell 2.0 Administrators Pocket Consultant
- O’Reilly Designing, Deploying and Running Active Directory
- Sybex Group Policy Fundamentals, Security and Troubleshooting
- The Complete Guide to Windows Server 2008
- Windows Server 2008 Resource Kit
I also have a MS TechNet subscription which is invaluable for testing software. That lot should keep me busy for a while! Hopefully I’ll be posting more content whilst i am in the progress of trying to read all of these books! My main focus is going to be on Active Directory, Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 & Exchange 2007 (or I may just wait for 2010),