I'd like to setup a test lab to test installing and using NPM and SAM. Basically it's to get me more familiar with the products without messing up the production environment.
I've downloaded the trial version of both NMP and SAM.
I hope to use 1 VM 2008 Standard R2 server. I don't expect to discover more than a couple hundred nodes and potentially will be only playing with views, and most nodes will be IMCP only. If I do some application monitoring it will only be on a few nodes and might just use WMI. I will be creating some advanced alerts and reports.
I suppose the 1st question I have is do I need a separate server for the SQL DB? I see in the Orion quick start guide it strongly recommends SQL on a 2nd server.
It also says "The FullWithSQL NPM installer package automatically installs SQL server express so if I do require a 2nd server is that what gets installed on the DB server? If so ... I didn't see that file when I extracted the Zip. I was hoping to get by with the SQL express version and have NPM setup and install the database during the installation ...
VM Server requirements for my lab. I currently have 1 CPU and 4 GB of RAM. C drive and D drive are 50GB each. I plan to install the applications on the C drive and DB on the D drive. Will that suffice? I should be able to upgrade if needed.
If I can get by with 1 server is there an installation order for NPM and SAM? I presume NPM and then SAM. I plan on downloading .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and 4.0 if it isn't installed already and enabling the IIS role before the install(s). Or will it download the required version of .NET Framework if it's not installed?
What documentation is recommend that I read up on other than what's provided in the eval zip files? Are there any recommended video's i should watch before I start?
Thanks ahead of time for your guidance. It will be greatly appreciated ... and I'm sure I'll have some follow up questions.