As Microsoft Certified Trainer, we delivered a training through a virtualization and most of it you will use hyper-V as a standard of virtualization technology. However, many labs on MOC (Microsoft Official Curriculum) uses Level 7 Hardware. It means you will need at least 8 GB Memory, and 1000 TB hard disk with 7200 RPM. Unfortunately, although you will have the hardware, the client will have same difficulty. for example, you deliver training on outside classroom without sufficient hardware. This article will help you to prepare the limited infrastructure scenario.
Building your own hardware
If you need to bring your own laptop, the idea of this laptop is should separate from your daily laptop. It should as clean as possible with the specification below
- Laptop with 13.3 or larger to make sure you have better visibility on delivering the session. 12 inch will work but you should make sure that it has capability to display at least 760p
- 500 GB hard drive or larger. You need a lot of extra spaces to host many VM. Therefore, you should have at least 500 GB. SSD will great but if you can’t achieve it you can use Traditional hard disk, hybrid disk, or combination between traditional hard disk with ready boost SD Card / Flash drive
- Wireless mouse, external hard drive, and spare USB flash drive will help you when you should share a quick content
- Screen projector at least HD Resolution 768p
- Screen connector like HDMI cable converter, VGA, and others.
Preparing the Software
So after you have sufficient mobile hardware, it is time to prepare your software please check it out:
- Windows 8.1 Professional or Windows Server 2012. There is no way for you to use Windows 8.1 single language or even Windows 7 64 bit, since we need the Hyper-V features.
- Microsoft OneNote for note taking software when you discuss a content with the participants
- OneDrive cloud storage for sync your content
- A development server that can be used with remote desktop connection. This will help you when you need a quick demo but you don’t have sufficient hardware on your mobile. i.e. Doing a demo for TFS load testing (non cloud)
- Download this ALM VM for a great content and demo
- Last but not least, make sure your software is minimalist. For example, you don’t need to install Visual Studio if your VM already have the Visual Studio on it.
That’s it, enjoy your life as a trainer of ALM Visual Studio