Microsoft’s Newest Technologies Require State Of The Art Student Lab Machines

By Todd Shelton, Chief Operating Officer, Netdesk

You have consistently told us that one of the most important parts of a Netdesk class is putting your own hands on the technology. Virtual technologies have made it possible to build real-world server and client scenarios on a student lab machine. A full installation of server OS, client OS, application servers like Exchange, SharePoint SQL Server and others, makes it possible for you to really see these great technologies work together.

There’s just one problem: Since these are separate, real operating systems the host hardware has to, literally, be all those computers added together. For the new classes—Configuration Manager, Operations Manager, and the Windows Server 2008 classes as an example--Microsoft’s recommended hardware configurations just aren’t fast enough to keep you focused on the lab. We know this because you complained about how slow and frustrating the VPCs were in even some of our older classes.

We decided that you should spend your class time doing the labs, not waiting for the labs. We also decided that in a Netdesk class you should get to play with Office 2007 and see glass and some of the other cool new things that Vista can do. We did a careful comparison test of different hardware and host operating system configurations to discover through measurement what platform we need to give you your money’s worth when you take a class at Netdesk.

Here’s what we discovered: Dual core Pentiums are barely enough. What gets it done is quad core Pentiums with 4-8gb of memory and three SATA hard drives. These virtual lab environments are not trivial, and it really takes a very strong machine to do a good job of hosting these new labs.

We are in the middle of upgrading all of our rooms to these new machines. We make sure to run our new classes on these new machines because they won’t work on lesser hardware. We are not in business to frustrate you and slow computers are, as we all know, one of the most frustrating things in existence.

When you are choosing a vendor for a class on a new Microsoft technology like Windows Server 2008 or SCOM, please ask about the hardware because it really does make a difference. Just make sure you get everything you’re paying for—and spend your class time doing your lab, not waiting for your lab.

Please continue to let us know how we can improve and do a better job for you.

Todd Shelton

Chief Operating Officer