Overview

I support a complex Microsoft Configuration Manager instance professionally. I decided a long time ago that in order to keep my skills current and learn new things, I needed my own Microsoft Configuration Manager playground. I have investigated a few of the methods to spin up pre-built instances but none I found were designed with a Central Administration Site in mind and I wanted my lab to more closely resemble the environment I support. Plus having to rebuild the environment regularly as trial licenses expire has been a good learning experience to drive automating new steps each time I need to tear it all down and start over again.

The lab environment consists of aan Active Directory domain and three additional Windows Server virtual machines running Configuration Manager and SQL co-located on the same system. There is a Central Administration Site (CAS) and two Child Primary Sites (PS1 and PS2). Additionally, there is a Windows 10 and a Windows 11 client assigned to each site.