APPENDICES
The lab, the tools, and the vocabulary of the AI-era administrator. Start with Appendix A to build the rig you'll run every project on.
Building Your Lab
A hypervisor, Linux + Windows Server VMs, containers, and an optional GPU
The rig you run every project on. How to stand up a home or cloud lab — a hypervisor, Linux and Windows Server VMs, Docker — and the options for getting a GPU when an exercise calls for one.
Running AI Locally and in the Cloud
Ollama, vLLM, Open WebUI, and cloud API access
Getting models running: a local stack with Ollama and Open WebUI, an optional vLLM GPU server, and setting up cloud API access to OpenAI, Azure AI Foundry, AWS Bedrock, and Google Vertex AI.
The Agentic-AI Toolkit
Which agent, the human-in-the-loop rules, classroom policy
How to set up and direct an agentic AI that edits files and runs commands. The non-negotiable human-in-the-loop rules, the approval gates, and what the required agent log must contain.
Glossary
Sysadmin + AI terms, alphabetical and by chapter
AIOps, vGPU, MIG, quantization, RAG, vector database, RPO/RTO, IaC, prompt injection, model drift, MCP, and the rest of the working vocabulary of the AI-era administrator.