Ulysses Ludwig’Blog

I have added a this special page to my blog to discuss with users how I build out my SharePoint 2010 (and 2007) labs.  Many people ask me on a regular basis what I use for development, what software do I use, and even what hardware I have running so I thought this post would be useful.    Furthermore, I’ve made it a prerequisite for those that work for me to build their own lab because there’s no better experience than hands on experience (not to mention it weeds out the individuals that simply cannot cut it). 

Hardware

Currently I have 2 workstations that I use as lab machines but one (the newer one) gets about 95% of my attention and is up roughly 99% of the time.  My main workstation specs are as follows

• Intel I7 930
• 16 GB 1600 Corsair DDR3 Memory (*** 1600 Memory makes this machine very fast)
• Gigabyte X58A
• Mirrored Sata 3 Barracuda 250 OS with maximum read of 6 Mbps (Marvell Raid)
• AIT Radeon 5670 with Mirrored Displays (Must Have)

What I think is powerful about this machine is not the processor or the mirrored 6 Mbps raid, it all comes down to the 1600 memory. 

Host Software

I have very little of note install on the host machine other than the basics including Office, Project, Greenshots, and, of course VMWare Worstation 8.0

Guest Software

All in all my guest operating system is nothing special.  What I think differentiates my Server 2008 R2 guest I call SPApp10 is that it’s literally an All-In-One with everything from the domain controller right down to Visual Studio 2010.  The installation is tricky and takes some time which is why I put these 3 blog posts together.

Installation Step by Step

• http://www.sharepointassist.com/2010/02/04/sharepoint-2010-installation-part-1-server-build/
• http://www.sharepointassist.com/2010/02/10/sharepoint-2010-installation-part-2-install-sql/
• http://www.sharepointassist.com/2010/02/11/sharepoint-2010-installation-part-3-install-sharepoint/

Virtual Hardware

• 4 GB Memory for basic work but I increase to 6 GB or even 8 GB during development, webcast recordings, or demos
• 2-4 Processors as needed

Windows Server 2008 R2 Roles

• Domain Controller
• DNS
• Web Server (IIS)

Software

• VMWare Tools (of course)
• SQL Server 2008 R2
• SharePoint 2010 SP1
  • Vanilla build – now PowerShell scripts were used to configure my lab!!!
• Visual Studio 2010
• Anksvn

Source Control

I have recently started taking control of my development code divergence by utilizing Assembla for all of my source control.  It’s a beautiful thing to be able to load your code directly onto a clients machine by simply right mouse keying and choosing “update to latest version”.  The days of zip files are slowly fading away.  Of course this has become even more useful for tracking  milestone builds for software I sell on http://www.expertassist.com/products/ (yes, that was a plug).

My Laptop

When I visit clients and hardware is not provided I bring a Macbook Air 13 inch 256 GB.  I had originally wanted to purchase a Powerbook 13 or 15 inch but the screen resolution maxed out at 800px while my air supports a vertical resolution of 900px, this seems really picayune but at the end of the day, the server manager in a remote desktop session is about 870px high.   The Air runs VMWare Fusion 4.0 and I have a Windows 7 64 bit host running at all times.

My Lab, 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating