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Certification Home Lab

A practice lab built for the exams you are sitting: a hypervisor host, an isolated lab network, cloud accounts with billing alerts, rebuildable images, lab notes tied to each objective and the routines that keep it cheap and safe.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for Certification Home Lab, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

What it installs.

1

Pillar

1

Area

50

Projects

200

Starter tasks

🏅 Tech & Engineering Certifications

Certification Home Lab

Building a home lab for certification practice: virtual machines, cloud free tiers, spare network gear, budget alerts and lab notes linked to each exam objective.

  1. Lab goals mapped to your next two exams
  2. Inventory of kit you already own
  3. Home lab budget and monthly spending cap
  4. Choosing a hypervisor for the lab host
  5. Isolating the lab network from the household
  6. Cloud account guardrails and budget alerts
  7. Lab notes system linked to exam objectives
  8. IP plan, naming scheme and lab secrets vault
  9. Golden images and base virtual machine templates
  10. Snapshot before every exercise routine
  11. Two protected lab sessions every week
  12. Monthly cloud bill and orphaned resource sweep
  13. Patch and update cycle for lab hosts
  14. Lab configuration backup routine
  15. Cloud lab teardown checklist
  16. Friday lab write-up
  17. Objective coverage map for the lab
  18. Free tier, trial and evaluation expiry calendar
  19. Power, heat and noise check for the lab
  20. Quarterly lab review against the exam plan
  21. Hypervisor networking with bridges, NAT and internal switches
  22. Rebuilding the lab from code
  23. Configuring lab machines with Ansible or shell scripts
  24. Containers and small clusters on the lab host
  25. Network emulation with GNS3, EVE-NG or Containerlab
  26. Packet capture points in the lab
  27. Central logging and monitoring for the lab
  28. Directory services lab with a domain controller
  29. Monthly fault drill in the lab
  30. Buying a used mini PC or server for the lab
  31. Second-hand switches, routers and access points
  32. Memory and storage upgrade for the lab host
  33. Local lab versus cloud lab cost comparison
  34. Remote access to the lab without exposing it
  35. Moving from a laptop lab to a dedicated host
  36. Retiring and wiping old lab kit
  37. Lab security hardening review
  38. First complete lab build weekend
  39. Hands-on objective sprint before an exam
  40. Wipe and rebuild drill in a single day
  41. Timed performance task rehearsal in the lab
  42. Lab build write-up for your portfolio
  43. Student lab on one laptop and almost no budget
  44. Running a lab in a shared flat or family home
  45. Using an employer sandbox or training account
  46. Career changer lab built from zero experience
  47. Shared lab for a study group
  48. Isolated security practice range
  49. Multi-site lab with simulated WAN and failover
  50. Self-hosted Git and CI pipeline for lab code

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

Lab goals mapped to your next two exams

A lab built without a target grows into a pile of half-finished virtual machines that never touch an exam objective. Writing down the next two exams you will sit, and which of their objectives actually need hands-on practice, decides what the lab must do in the next six months and what it can safely ignore.

First tasks

  • Write down the next two exams you plan to sit and the month for each
  • Download the current objectives for both from the awarding body's website
  • Mark every objective as lab, reading only, or already done at work
  • Write a one-paragraph brief of what the lab must run

Inventory of kit you already own

Most people already have enough for a first lab: an old laptop with 16 GB of memory, a retired desktop, a spare router or a Raspberry Pi in a drawer. Listing every device with its processor, memory, storage and network ports before buying anything stops you spending money on a capability already sitting on a shelf.

First tasks

  • Gather every spare laptop, desktop, router and single-board computer in one place
  • Record processor, memory, storage and ports for each device
  • Check each candidate host has virtualisation enabled in the firmware settings
  • Update the inventory with anything added, sold or broken @recurring(yearly)

Home lab budget and monthly spending cap

Lab spending leaks from three places at once: second-hand kit that looks cheap, cloud resources left running overnight, and the extra electricity of a server that never sleeps. Setting one figure for kit and one monthly cap for cloud and power, agreed before the first purchase, keeps the lab a study tool rather than a hobby that quietly eats the exam fee.

First tasks

  • Decide a one-off kit budget and a monthly running cap
  • Estimate the lab host's monthly electricity cost from its wattage and your tariff
  • Start a spending log with kit, cloud and power columns
  • Add the month's lab spending to the log and compare it with the cap @recurring(monthly:27)

Make it yours.

Install Certification Home Lab, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.