In this series of articles, I will show you how to setup System Center Configuration Manager 2016 (SCCM) lab on Dell PowerEdge R710 with OS Windows Server 2016.

At the end of this series, I will have fully functional System Center Configuration manager 2016 Lab on bare metal Dell PowerEdge R710 with 96 GB Ram, Intel Xeon X5670 @ 2.93 GHZ Processor. This SCCM Lab will be setup very similar to enterprise level production environment. The step by step instructions will include:

  • Domain Controller Server Setup
    • Active Directory
    • DHCP
    • DNS
  • SQL Server 2016 Server Setup
  • SCCM Server Setup
    • WSUS
    • Endpoint Protection
    • MDT Deployment
  • Bonus
    • Create and Deploy Adobe Reader Package via SCCM
    • More Bonus will be later . So stay tuned 🙂

Let’s get started …

SCCM Lab & Demo Environment

Hardware:

Mode: Dell PowerEdge R710

CPU: Intel Xeon X5670 @2.93 GHx (2Processors)

RAM: 96GB

See all Specification Here

Note! You can always go with lower specs if needed.

Sofware:

Operating System: Microsoft Windows Server 2016

Hypervisor: Microsoft HyperV

Windows Server Installation – Host

The minimum hardware requirements to Install Windows Server 2016 are 64-Bit processor architecture, 1.4 GHz processor speed, 2GB Memory (RAM) and 160 GB of hard disk. For SCCM Lab I will be installing Windows Server 2016 on Hardware mentioned above as a host. I will then enable Microsoft Hyper V feature and create fully functional SCCM 2016 lab in virtual environment.

Installing Windows Server as host:

Boot the machine with Windows Server 2016 boot able media.

  1. Select Languge, Time and Currency and Keyboard type and Click “Next”
    Windows server 2016
  2. Click “Install Now”
  3. Select “Windows Server 2016 Standard Evaluation (Desktop Experience..) & Click “Next”
  4. Read the License Terms Check ” I accept the license terms” and click “Next”
  5. Since it’s brand new install. We Do not need to upgrade. Select “Custom: Install Windows Only “
  6. Leave Everything default and click “Next”
  7. The system should stall Installing Windows Server 2016. The system might reboot couple of time during the process.
  8. Enter Administrator Password and Click “Finish”
  9. Congrats . The Windows Server 2016 Installation Completed Successfully.

This should conclude Installation of Windows Server 2016 on host machine. In the next article, I will show you how to install setup Domain Controller in Virtual environment.

Next Part 2: Installing Active Directory