Become an IT Wizard: Unleash Your Potential With a Home Lab!

In my IT career, I have had the pleasure of working with some truly brilliant people and I can’t help but look at them and say I wish I could be an IT wizard too! I learned very quickly that I could be a wizard if I dedicated time to learning technology on non-production equipment.

A home lab creates opportunities for you to build your knowledge and for you to develop your wizard powers. IT Wizards are not born, they are made! IT professionals in 2023 should strive to be a generalist first and a home lab is an excellent opportunity for you to develop skills in so many disciplines like server administration, networking, cybersecurity, storage, virtualization, cloud, database management, automation, VoIP and so much more.

Now, let’s delve into the world of home labs and explore why they are essential for your IT growth, setting goals to make the most of your home lab, and discovering how to leverage virtualization to kickstart your home lab journey on a budget. Embrace the magic of home labs and unleash your inner IT wizard! Pick a technology and start learning in your home lab today.

The Power of home labs – Why Every IT Enthusiast Needs One

What is a home lab?

A home lab essentially is an IT environment that you create at home. One of the major benefits of doing this particularly if you work in IT is that you can replicate real-world IT scenarios. A home lab is a safe place where you can experiment like a mad scientist and make changes to an IT environment without the fear that you will break a production system for a customer.

Depending on your learning goals, your home lab can look very different than the next person’s home lab. Commonly what you will find in a home lab is a server that uses virtualization technology to host different kinds of operating systems, servers, or applications that a person would like to learn.

Why do you need a home lab?

The short answer is that you don’t need a home lab. It isn’t a requirement or anything like that. However, if you are just trying to break into IT and wondering how you will get that first IT job with no experience, then NOT having a home lab is like leaving money on the negotiation table. For folks with no experience, I strongly urge you to create a home lab. A home lab will give you the experience you need to do well on the technical questions in an interview. This is the greatest benefit of having a home lab – your experience turns into confidence!

If you are currently working in IT, specifically a fast-paced role where you have the opportunity to touch many different types of technology, home labs offer you an opportunity to slow down and learn technology deeply. As mentioned, IT professionals in 2023 should strive to be generalists and expand their skill sets amongst a wide variety of IT disciplines. I think one of the best ways to diversify your skillset and become desirable in the market is to use your home lab to dive deep into a discipline.

Unleashing Your Wizardry – Setting Goals for your home lab

So you decided to create a home lab. The logical next question is how do I create a home lab? The answer to this question will largely depend on your goals.

If you are trying to get a job in IT Support, help desk, etc., your goal really should be to try to create an enterprise network environment in your home lab. In a nutshell, you want to learn the technologies that businesses are using in their IT environments.

Here are three examples of goals for your home lab that are geared toward creating an enterprise network at home:

Learning Active Directory and The Many Windows Server Roles

An important concept in IT to understand is client-server architecture. A server is nothing more than a computer that serves something to other computers (clients). Client PCs will request a service and a server will respond to a client’s request and provide that service.

Most businesses are using some version of the Windows Server operating system. In Windows Server, you can install and assign various roles to a server. Active Directory Users and Computers is a very important role to understand and building your skills in Active Directory will deepen your understanding of server-client architecture.

Active Directory Domain Services in a nutshell is what Windows Server uses to store data about objects in a network and make that data available to users on the network and administrators. Two examples of objects that Active Directory stores are user accounts and the computers on the network.

Knowing how Active Directory Users & Computers works is a critical skill for anyone trying to get that first IT job. You need to know how to create AD accounts, reset passwords, create AD security groups, add/remove users from AD groups, join computers to an Active Directory domain, and so much more.

Active Directory is just one of the many roles that you can install in the Windows Server operating system. Windows Server can also fulfill the role of a DNS server, a DHCP server, a File Server, a print server, an Remote Desktop Services (RDS) Server, and so much more. Learning all these Windows Server roles are great goals to start with and can lead you down a Microsoft rabbit hole. So much fun!

Learning Networking Fundamentals

Understanding Networking fundamentals is critical for any IT professional. Networking is the reason why you can even read these words on your screen. It is because your device is transmitting and receiving requests using some physical medium (either a wire or wireless radio waves) through a network of computers. Understanding how this all works at a fundamental level will serve you well in any discipline in IT.

If you are new to IT and computer networking I highly recommend this Microsoft Learn module entitled “Fundamentals of Computer Networking” for a high-level introduction to Networking:

Link: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/modules/network-fundamentals/

After you have been introduced to fundamental networking concepts, the best way to put that theory to practice is by applying those networking fundamentals in a home lab. Understand that the TCP/IP protocol is the backbone of the internet and of any network of devices. Start pinging the devices on your network and practice configuring IP addresses on the interfaces of your devices.

If you have a home router, log in to your router and explore the settings, ask questions, and do further research on the settings you find. If your home router is the crappy equipment that your Internet Service Provider gave you, a great project to deepen your understanding of networking would be to replace your ISP’s equipment with your router.

Understand that your ISP’s device is often an “all in one” device that collapses the functionality of a few networking devices into one device. Your ISP often sells you a device that functions as a modem, a router, a switch, a firewall, and a wireless access point.

One awesome way to deepen your understanding of these networking devices is to not only replace your ISP’s equipment but to make your home network look more like an enterprise business network. In a business, you won’t find all-in-one devices that provide network connectivity to all its users like in your home. A business often has a dedicated router (often a firewall appliance that functions as a router), a dedicated switch or switches, and dedicated wireless access points.

In the process of making your home network look more like an enterprise business network, you will learn so much about the many networking protocols like DNS, DHCP, ICMP, and more. The world of networking protocols is massive but it is important to know some of these fundamental networking protocols, how they work, and how to implement them to have a real-world, functioning understanding of networking and how it impacts all aspects of IT!

Learning Cloud Technologies

In today’s modern IT environments, businesses are increasingly moving workloads to the cloud. This means that the modern IT professional needs to have working knowledge and skills in at least one of the 3 big cloud platforms – Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud.

If you are new to IT Support or trying to get your first job in IT Support chances are you will be running into Azure and Microsoft 365 for Business/Enterprise. Microsoft 365 subscriptions offer a suite of cloud-based solutions for identity and access, security, email, compliance, productivity apps, and much more.

In Microsoft 365 you will be running into a lot of the same things you would be if you were managing a Microsoft environment on-premises like creating user accounts in Azure Active Directory, assigning users to groups, creating mailboxes, assigning licenses, and managing devices. If you are already working in IT you have an edge here because you likely see Microsoft 365 frequently enough that you can learn this on the job however you may not be able to make configuration changes to learn certain concepts.

A great idea for your home lab would be to sign up for a Microsoft 365 subscription trial, buy a cheap domain and bind it to your Microsoft 365 tenant. This also allows you to learn hybrid cloud by installing Azure AD Connect on a Windows Server instance and syncing to Microsoft 365.

Virtualization Technologies For Your Home Lab

OK, so you decided on the technologies you wanted to learn and made some goals. You might be saying to yourself I don’t have money to buy all these networking devices and computers. How can I start a home lab for free? The answer is Virtualization!

What hardware do you need to start using virtualization?

To start virtualizing, you need a pc with a CPU that supports virtualization and you also need extra RAM so that the virtual machines you run will perform relatively well. You can probably get away with starting your lab with 16GB of RAM but I highly recommend upgrading to 32GB of RAM or more if it is supported.

You can start virtualizing right now on whatever computer you have. Another idea would be to upgrade your current computer and make your old computer, your dedicated home lab machine. If you have an old computer laying around you could also take that and make it your dedicated home lab machine. You may need to upgrade things like RAM and storage but this would be an excellent choice.

What Virtualization technology can you use to start your home lab?

Hyper-V

If your goal is to learn Windows environments then the best way to spin up Windows virtual machines without worrying about compatibility issues is by using Hyper-V. Hyper-V is built into the Windows 10 Client and Windows Server operating system. If your home lab machine is running Windows 10 Pro edition then there is no need to download anything; all you need to do is enable it.

Oracle Virtualbox

I have a special place in my heart for Virtualbox because it is where I started my virtualization journey. Virtualbox is free and open source and is very easy to use. Unlike Hyper-V which is built into Microsoft Windows, you must download Virtualbox and install it. The cool thing about Virtualbox is that it is multi-platform which means you can install it on Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

ProxMox

ProxMox is a Type 1 hypervisor that you can install directly on bare metal hardware. If you are trying to learn Linux server administration then ProxMox is the clear winner here. I would not recommend ProxMox for a beginner because the learning curve is steep if you never really touched Linux, however, there are tons of Linux communities that you can join with people ready to help you if you get stuck.

The virtualization option you choose will depend largely on the type of hardware you have and what your goals are. Choose a virtualization technology that aligns with your goals and start creating your home lab!

Conclusion

A home lab can help you get that first job or if you are already working in IT it can help you take your career to the next level. A home lab can help you reach any goal, whether it be developing skills in server administration, network administration, cloud technologies, cybersecurity, and more!

Turn your enthusiasm and curiosity into confidence by creating and breaking things in your home lab. You will have moments where you are frustrated and stuck but when you do reach that point, know there are tons of communities to join so find one and ask your questions.

Lab on!