I have been using VMware Workstation personally for the last few years as the platform for my playground, but only because I received a free license a few years ago when I spoke about virtualizing SQL Server using ESX at the VMware Open Forum in Orlando, FL. I recently had to rebuild my playground from the ground up and as a part of doing this I decided that I would blog about all the steps I took to build a completely FREE environment to play with SQL Server, including a virtual iSCSI “SAN” to support failover clustering. For the last few years, I have always had a personal virtual playground for SQL Server setup on my laptop that allowed me to not only learn about new features in SQL Server, but also demonstrate complex topics hands on during presentations.
