We will use VMware Player, a free virtual machine application, and the trial versions for Windows Server 2012 R2, SQL Server 2014, Windows Management Framework, and optionally Visual Studio 2010:
Download and install VMware player from http://www.vmware.com/products/player/. You can find the VMWare player documentation at http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/player_pubs.html.
Download the Windows Server 2012 R2 trial version ISO file (or if you have a licensed copy, use that) from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2012-r2.
Download the SQL Server 2014 trial version ISO file (or if you have a licensed copy, use that) from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-sql-server-2014.
Download the Windows Management Framework 5. At the time of writing this book, Windows Management Framework 5 Preview April 2015 is available at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=46889.
Download SQL Server Data Tools and SQL Server Data Tools Business Intelligence (optional) from https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt204009.aspx.
If you are planning to create some SQLCLR assemblies, you will need Visual Studio Professional (optional). SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is not sufficient for creating the assemblies. You can download Visual Studio from https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/vs-2015-product-editions.aspx.