Building a low cost VMware vSphere Lab using VMware Workstation

So you want to build a home lab for testing or to help study for a exam but you don't have a large budget to do this. You are in luck with the use of VMware Workstation you can create a nested vSphere lab on a single piece of hardware even a laptop so you can take your lab with you.

Below I am going to cover what is needed to create this lab and how to build the basic items required to have your lab up and working. This will be broken into 8 steps to complete the lab setup process.

Step 1) What is needed to build your vSphere lab on VMware Workstation

• This section will cover everything you need to have ready to get started with your home lab including hardware and software. 

Step 2) Plan and design your vSphere lab networking in VMware Workstation

• This section will cover how to setup the networking inside of VMware Workstation to allow the lab to communicate.

Step 3) Plan and create a windows template in VMware Workstation

• This is part of making this lab a low cost solution. I will be showing how to create a windows template and then using linked clones feature inside of VMware workstation to save storage space.

Step 4) Building Domain Controller VM

• This section will cover using the linked clone process inside of VMware Workstation to create a Windows Domain Controller VM.

Step 5) Building ESXi host VM

• This section will cover building a ESXi host inside of VMware workstation. We will cover the basic ESXi setup process in this part.

Step 6) Building vCenter VM

• This section will cover installing a windows vCenter VM from a linked clone. The configuration process will be during step 8.

Step 7) Setup Shard Storage for ESXi hosts

• This section will cover using open filer as a shard storage solution for ESXi hosts. We will be using iSCSI as the storage solution.

Step 8) Basic vCenter and ESXi Configuration

• This section will cover configuring both vCenter and ESXi. 

This completes the basic setup of the home lab. I will be doing more blog posts on home lab setups later based on items I am working on. If there is something you want to see let me know and I can try to fit it in.