HELP With Virtual Network

[chuckiefungo]

Hello,
I am trying to help my friend who is good with computers but not great with English. He posted on here a few weeks ago as he needs help with a project. My son's school has offered him a project as a sort of test to see what he can do. He and I both think he can do this but it has been three years since he worked in IT in his country and he wants some assistance making a plan for how to do this.

Can anyone out there help him. I can work as the translator /go-between. Here are the details of the project:

Candidate will be required to work on a project that begins with established equipment and produce a working stable environment where our students can run virtual machines within a self-contained networking environment. The scope of the project will include:
· Create documentation mapping out the wiring structure and IP address scheme for the environment.
· Installation and configuration of software on physical host equipment
· Installation and configuration of VMware management console
· Association of physical hosts in the VMware management console with the licensing environment and associated processes (HA, startup rules, resource associations on blades, etc….)
· Creation of a domain environment within the virtual environment consisting of:
o 2 domain controllers (2008)
o DNS service
o IIS server
o DHCP server with configured scope
o 5 desktop computers (windows 7)
o Email server (2010)
o Creation of test user accounts to use in the environment
· Once established, you will then perform upgrades on the environment to test the changes migration from a 2008 domain to a 2012 domain. They will also perform an upgrade of exchange 2010 to the latest build version.

I'd greatly appreciate any help that is out there. Thanks.

 

[iPwn]

Wow, that looks like a networking capstone... what kind of help are you looking for? Someone could easily write pages on that!

What exactly is he asking for on this?

 

[chuckiefungo]

I think he is looking for help making an overview plan. how to break down into smaller chunks, such as what the IP Addresses would look like. Any thoughts?

 

[Draygoes]

And Vmware is required?
Beside that, where do they expect him to build this network? We are talking about somthing above a server OS here...

 

[root]

The task is basically create a classroom environment.

So on a bunch of blade servers,
Make a VMware cluster complete with HA
Connect that cluster to a switch (and presumably firewall to segregate to networks) -you could use switch ACLs to segregate networks. (But don't! -personal preference.)
On your VMware farm set up a management domain to have your management servers (vcentre etc) radius for firewall logins if needed.

That is "network 1" and is your management and infrastructure network.

Under this you want "network 2" the classroom/operations network.
This will have another AD domain and sit on the same network as the classroom PCs, you need an email server (or at least access to) on this network, this network should not have access directly to the vcentre server on your vm network. But you should have complete access into the following network.

Now you need "network 3" the sandpit network(s)
These networks should all sit on the same address space (though you can allow people multiple networks to learn about VMware)
Each student is "assigned" ten networks (e.g 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.9.0)
And ten vlans for virtual switching.
Students can access hyper visors, but critically the hypervisors are pretend virtualised ones.

Students start vshphere on their desktops and connect to student1hypervisor1 192.168.0.1 and student1hyp2 192.168.0.2

Student 2 has virtual hypervisors on 182.168.10.1 and 192.168.10.2

They can then make their own vcentre servers, and use the virtual switch to assign ports. And a virtual firewall appliance to allow traffic to and from different places.


Of course, they don't have to assign students addresses in the class c rfc1918 range. It might make sense to use the classA range and assign student1 10.1.0.0
Student 2 gets 10.2.0.0 (then each students could have many subnetted ranges.


Now... Here comes the critical part...
Assuming I read your first post correctly. This is not "that hard"... If your friend is really struggling then it could be that he's actually not as good as you think/hope.
The reply above was written in ten minutes on a phone. -I suppose in some ways I cheat since it's my job, but he should be able to sit down with a copy of word and Visio and knock out a complete design inside of a day (possibly 2).

Even though your friends first language is not English, it would probably be more helpful if they asked, if you ask for them it's unlikely that you're asking what they need to know, (you're asking about IPs to assign) but that probably the least important part!)

And I'm assuming that the work will need to be submitted in English, so it may help to get advice in english.

 

[chuckiefungo]

Thanks. You gave so much information and I am sure that you have much more experience than he has. At least more recent as he has been here 3 years without a job in IT. I think he is struggling to get back into it.

I will let him write the questions here. I have some interest and knowledge in IT so I thought I could help him but I see from your response that I am at the way beginning in all of this. I have so many questions that I will take myself out of the loop except to clarify his English.

I will show this to him and post his questions later today.

Again, thanks.

 

[chuckiefungo]

The task is basically create a classroom environment.

So on a bunch of blade servers,
Make a VMware cluster complete with HA
Connect that cluster to a switch (and presumably firewall to segregate to networks) -you could use switch ACLs to segregate networks. (But don't! -personal preference.)
On your VMware farm set up a management domain to have your management servers (vcentre etc) radius for firewall logins if needed.

That is "network 1" and is your management and infrastructure network.

Under this you want "network 2" the classroom/operations network.
This will have another AD domain and sit on the same network as the classroom PCs, you need an email server (or at least access to) on this network, this network should not have access directly to the vcentre server on your vm network. But you should have complete access into the following network.

Now you need "network 3" the sandpit network(s)
These networks should all sit on the same address space (though you can allow people multiple networks to learn about VMware)
Each student is "assigned" ten networks (e.g 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.9.0)
And ten vlans for virtual switching.
Students can access hyper visors, but critically the hypervisors are pretend virtualised ones.

Students start vshphere on their desktops and connect to student1hypervisor1 192.168.0.1 and student1hyp2 192.168.0.2

Student 2 has virtual hypervisors on 182.168.10.1 and 192.168.10.2

They can then make their own vcentre servers, and use the virtual switch to assign ports. And a virtual firewall appliance to allow traffic to and from different places.


Of course, they don't have to assign students addresses in the class c rfc1918 range. It might make sense to use the classA range and assign student1 10.1.0.0
Student 2 gets 10.2.0.0 (then each students could have many subnetted ranges.


Now... Here comes the critical part...
Assuming I read your first post correctly. This is not "that hard"... If your friend is really struggling then it could be that he's actually not as good as you think/hope.
The reply above was written in ten minutes on a phone. -I suppose in some ways I cheat since it's my job, but he should be able to sit down with a copy of word and Visio and knock out a complete design inside of a day (possibly 2).

Even though your friends first language is not English, it would probably be more helpful if they asked, if you ask for them it's unlikely that you're asking what they need to know, (you're asking about IPs to assign) but that probably the least important part!)

And I'm assuming that the work will need to be submitted in English, so it may help to get advice in english.

Hello Root,

I think my friend is intimidated. He doesn't want to do it any longer. But I would like to try if you could help a nubie, like me. It would be a great way to learn, if you are willing. I have wanted to learn more about this area and I do speak English fluently (ha, ha). Are you willing to answer my questions and direct me?

 

[root]

I think my friend is intimidated. He doesn't want to do it any longer.

it's a shame that he feels intimidated and doesn't want to do it.

I know that my post was rather brash and sort of saying "come on you should know this stuff!).

Sure, I'm willing to help anyone! just make a post in the forums and plenty of people (myself included) should come along and post.