Virtual PC made FCS Security Boot camp possible

Recently, I attended a bootcamp on Microsoft Forefront Client Server(FCS) Security organized by Microsoft at Brainworks Learning Center in Khichapokhari, Kathmandu. The three day long training was absolutely hands-on with very little to do with the theoretical knowledge underlying within.

FCS Security demands a huge network( Min. 250 computers interconnected under a domain) of clients and server based computers. In such a case, learning FCS in real world scenario for FCS configuration is nearly impossible. So, here, in such a condition, making use of Virtual PCs  is the best solution and that was what we did during the whole Bootcamp sessions.

I wanted to share with you (of course the forefront part is not possible here!) on how exactly we made use of virtual PC to serve our purposes.We were actually working on desktop PCs with Windows XP platform having sound hardware configurations. But, for the whole sessions, Windows server 2003 was our ultimate platform. So, how? …..Yes exactly! We made use of Virtual Machine with server 2003 setup in it. Everything went great, we had no problems running it.

After that, we wanted to create few more virtual machines to run on the same platform. It wasn’t easy though. But,Thanks to our trainer, Mr. Udhyan Timilsina, who was already ready with the tools in hand. So, what we did was we simply ran other ready to use virtual PCs to serve our client server requirements.

Now, it was more like a fun than cramming to learn. We configured a whole lot of server and client virtual PCs including the servers that deployed Microsoft exchange and Microsoft SharePoint. We needed time to learn, explore the panels and customize security policies. And, we did it all without having to worry for the chances to lose system database as we were working on virtual PCs. For a Server in Sydney to a client terminal in Cairo;), everything was made possible through virtual PC. Creating a virus in client machine, quarantining it and then applying various policies including to send an email notification to the Server was absolutely fun for a single trainee using a single computer.

Kudos to Virtual PC!