Creating a Development VM

This document details the steps required to install and test the SDL Tridion Content Manager 2011 server on a Windows 2008 R2 platform, with a SQL Server backend.

Document Summary

This tutorial guides you through the steps required to install and test the SDL Tridion Content Manager 2011 server on a Windows 2008 R2 platform, with a SQL Server backend.

It is meant as a guide, and it may be applicable only to the "GA" release of SDL Tridion 2011.

Tutorial Sections:

Platform Details

Windows Version

  • Windows 2008 R2 Data Center Edition

Database version

  • SQL Server 2008 SP2

Software requirements for this tutorial

  • Microsoft Windows 2008 R2
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
  • VMWare Player 3.0
  • SDL Tridion 2011
  • Eclipse WTP
  • Tomcat 7.0

Glossary

Term

Definition

[Tridion_Install]

The location where the Tridion installation files are in your file system (C:\_install\Tridion2011 in our examples)

[Tridion]

The location where the Tridion Content Manager is installed to (C:\Program Files (x86)\Tridion in our examples)

MTSUser

The windows account used by Tridion to run the Content Manager Processes.

T2011-GURU-R2

The (windows) name of our Tridion Content Manager server

Creating your Virtual Machine

This step will guide you through the steps required to build a VM. You will need the following:

  • Windows 2008 R2 ISO (downloadable from MSDN)
  • Windows 2008 R2 Product Key (retrievable from MSDN)
  • VMWare Player (free download from www.vmware.com)

Creating the Virtual Machine

Launch VMWare Player, click on "Create a New Virtual Machine"


Select to install from an "Instaqller disc image file (iso)" and browse to the location of your Windows 2008 R2 ISO file

Enter your product key, and add a user (recommended). Use a password you can remember!

Give your machine a nice name

Give yourself enough space for growth. Gone are the days of 5 GB VM images, so make sure you don't have to go find ways to hack your disk size later on.

Click on "Customize Hardware" and add one more GB of RAM to your VM. You need that power.

Click Finish. VMWare Player will now use "Easy Install" to prepare your VM. This will take between 20 and 40 minutes, depending on your hardware.

Next section: Preparing Windows

Move on to the next part in this tutorial: Preparing Windows