TechNet Recommended Reading :

Hardware Requirements

The hardware requirements for this type of setup are very high. Microsoft’s recommendation on TechNet describes the recommended hardware requirements for the Management Server(s) along with other features. Use this information to help plan for hardware requirements for your Management Server(s).

Main Management Server

Needs to have at least 4 GB of ram to run
Needs to have at least 140 GB of Diskspace to run
Operating system used will be Server 2012 Standard Edition 64 bit
Processor architecture will be 64bit
Windows Powershell Version 3.0
.NET Framework 4.0 is required

Installation

There are 2 different deployment scenarios that you can use: Single-Server, and Distributed. Microsoft has created 2 diagrams to show the different deployments. In our example, we are going to use the distributed type.

This will make one server the Central Administration Server and another server a Primary Site server. Both of these servers will run SQL serverr. This will allow for expansion of the site after the initial creation, and is recommended for enterprise environments. The supported configuration should support up to 100,000 clients, even if my hardware can’t.

Introduction

I will be using VMWare ESXi 5.5 in my LAB to host the virtual machines in the LAB.

The virtual machines will be running Windows Server 2012 Datacenter as well as Windows Server 2012. The client machines will be Windows XP and Windows 7.

My hardware will consist of the following:

Server 1:

AMD FX8350
BioStar A960D+
16 GB DDR3 ram
1 2TB Hitachi HD
250 GB Samsung SSD 840 Evo for caching)

Server 2:

AMD FX8350
BioStar A960D+
16 GB DDR3 ram
1 2TB Hitachi HD
250 GB Samsung SSD 840 Evo (for caching)

Networking

Asus RT-N56U
Pfsense 2.1 Firewall

Host PC:

Intel Core i5
Gigabyte
16 GB DDR3 ram
1 2TB Hitachi HD

High Level Plan

Here is a high level plan of what will be completed in the following posts:

1. Create the Lab Environment

2. Install the Operating System

3. Install Active Directory Domain Services

4. Install SQL Server

5. Install System Center Configuration Manager

After the initial creation of the System Center Environment, later posts will detail how to get parts of System Center working correctly and why they are used.

So now let’s start with the first part, creating the lab environment.

Posts:

Part 1 Creation of Lab Environment using Vmware ESXi 5.5

Part 2 Installation of Operating Systems on VM s

Part 3 Installation of Active Directory Dom ain Services

Part 4 Active Directory Preparation Work

Part 5 Installation of SQL Server

Part 6 – Installation of Config Mgr PreReqs

Part 7 – Installing Configuration Manager

Part 8 – How to set boundaries and enable discovery methods

Part 9 – Deploying Client and managing client settings

Part 10 – Collecting Inventory and Creating Simple Collections