Building a Home Lab for VMware vSphere5

I often get asked by my students how to setup a home lab for study after class, and the result is this white paper. This paper is broken down into three major sections: the hardware required, the VMware Workstation configuration, and installing vSphere and Virtual Center (VC). This white paper is not intended to be an in-depth review of how to install and configure vSphere as that is taught in the VMware classes and a VMware class is required for certification. Also note that when specific vendors are mentioned, it is not an endorsement, but rather an example of something that I have used and I know works.