So you’d like to build an Active Directory (AD) lab and have no idea how to get started. I learnt how to build labs manually however this was quite time consuming and didn’t allow much flexibility (which I’ll cover in a future article).

To setup an AD lab today we’ll be leveraging AutomatedLab. AutomatedLab is a provisioning solution that lets you deploy simple and complex labs on HyperV and Azure with simple PowerShell scripts.

Technical Requirements:

Windows Server 2012 R2+/Windows 8.1+

Administrator Privilege

Intel VT-x or AMD/V capable CPU

A reasonable amount of RAM (8GB+)

Hyper-V

The full list of requirements can be found on their website.

Skill Requirements: