NETLAB+ Requirements for VMware IT Academy Program^®

This page describes the NETLAB+ system requirements to support the VMware IT Academy Program. The NETLAB+ pod design for the VMware IT Academy vSphere Install, Configure, Manage Course (ICM), uses 100% virtualized lab components (i.e. ESXi-in-ESXi) to achieve a high pod to physical host ratio, at a significantly lower cost point relative to traditional delivery of ICM.

Using VMware virtualization and the sharing and scheduling capabilities of NETLAB+, each student (or team of students) has access to their own ICM pod, which they may maintain exclusive use of throughout the course.

Please review the NETLAB+ System Requirements and specific requirements for other courses and lab content.

Required Hardware Components

The following interactive diagram and table lists required hardware components that are required to support the VMware IT Academy Program. See the Scaling section of this page to determine how many ESXi servers are required.

#	Component	Description	Learn More
1	NETLAB+ Server	NETLAB+^® is a server appliance with all software pre-installed.	NETLAB+ Overview
2	VMware vCenter	VMware vCenter enables you to manage the resources of multiple ESXi hosts and allows you to monitor and manage your physical and virtual infrastructure. NETLAB+ integrates with VMware vCenter to assist the administrator with installing, replicating and configuring virtual machine pods.	vCenter Requirements
3	VMware ESXi	Physical VMware ESXi servers host the virtual machines in your pods. Virtualization using ESXi is performed on separate physical servers, not included with NETLAB+. You can interface with multiple ESXi servers if necessary.	Recommended Hardware for ESXi

VMware ESXi Host Requirements and vCenter Requirements

These components are used for NETLAB+ management of VMs. Specifications are provided on the Remote PC Support page.

Host Server Requirements

ESXi 4.1 U2 is required on physical host servers.
ESXi 5.0 is currently NOT supported on the physical host servers due to several known issues.
The physical ESXi host server memory requirement for ICM 5.0 has increased to 128GB per server (previously 72GB for ICM 4.1) to maintain the same 8-to-1 pod to host ratio. (see table below)
16GB DIMMs are recommended to accommodate memory expansion for ICM 5 and beyond. A memory upgrade may be required if you previously built a 72GB system based on 4GB DIMMs.

Scaling

The number of active ICM pods that can be used simultaneously depends on the NETLAB+ product edition and the number of VMware ESXi host servers meeting the current NDG virtual machine host server specifications. The following table shows the number of active pods (students or teams) that can scheduled at the same time. You may provision more ICM pods than the active limit.

NETLAB+ Edition	Number of VMware ESXi Servers	Active ICM Pods
Academy Edition	1	8
Academy Edition	2	16
Professional Edition	3	24
Professional Edition	4	32

ESXi Host Resource Utilization for ICM Pod

The following table shows the resources utilization for ICM 4.1 and ICM 5.0. Both courses run on the same pod type. The ICM 5.0 course requires more server memory than ICM 4.1.