I've been put in a position where I'm in charge of my company's network but I am shamefully short on knowledge or practical experience. To fix this, I want to dive in and get my hands on as much as possible. I can't mess around with the production environment for fear of breaking something, so I want to create a new testing/lab network from the ground up.
I have started by installing an evaluation copy of Windows Server 2012 on an available PC and my next steps were going to be setting up a domain controller and active directory, adding a cheap little switch, and then some client PC's.
Here's my main question (although any other words of wisdom/caution would be appreciated): How should I set up this test network within the company's existing production network? Would it be as simple as putting a router in between the existing network and the test? I want these two networks to be completely separated so that there's no chance that any of my messing around will affect the production network.
