Finished setting up my vmware server 1.0.9 and GNS3

During my 4 weeks of studying for the written test, I was able to set up the following EQ for my lab work later.

1. I know I would need a powerful PC so I built up a PC with Core 2 duo Xeon CPU , 6 GB RAM and about 200 GB of disk space. I should be able to add another 1Tetra bytes of external disk space via usb interfaces.
2. The 4gig RAM finally come in on aug29, I placed them into the PC and whoo, it booted up with a total of 6 gig. It was kinda pain in the ass to get the single channel (fully buffered DDR2) instead of the dual channel DDR2. I had to order the 4 gig online. If the damn PC would use the dual channel DDR2, I could have pick up the DDR2 at the local Frys store.
3. The 4 gig RAM of single channel DDR2 cost me as much as 8 gig of dual channel DDR2
4. Finally the performance of the PC is decent enough now
5. Before with the default 2 gig ram, whenver CUCM and unity were running concurrently, the PC would slow to a crawl. Now with 6 gig ram in place, performance is kinda decent

Late on Saturday night , august 29 2009, I tallied my PC inventory and had the following working:

1. CUCM version 7.1.2 running under vmware server 1.0.9
2. Unity connection version 7.1.2 running (also under vmware)
3. GNS3 and dynamips working. I had 2 routers up and running and they were able to ping each other
4. I still need to set up an external switch and connect some IP phone to the switch or use another PC which run IP communicator to emulate IP phone.

Regardless, my basic setup is done and I am ready to tackle the voice CCIE lab