How should I create a good environment for .Net development for Sharepoint?

Question

My company have used external companies for all software development and infrastructure but now we want to move it inhouse. The company uses Microsoft products where applicable to standardize the enviroment. Sharepoint will be used as a portal to all tools needed by management, sales personal etc. Sharepoint runs on one server and our databases on another. They are both located abroud. Now to the question:

How can I setup a good environment for developing and testing our software. i.e. customized Web Parts, integration of externally located web sevices etc?

How would a good development / test server be equipped (hardware and software)?

Is it better to buy a powerful server or better equipped workstations running virtual copies of our servers?

How have your companies solved it, and what would you change in your setup?

With regards Marcus

Answer 1

I personally use and recommend a virtual machine with everything on it including SQL Server, MOSS 2007 and Visual Studio. Every developer in a team should have their own copy of it. A good laptop computer with enough memory can indeed host such a virtual machine - but I prefer having a high-end server in a server room hosting it as this simply rocks. For development, you just remote desktop to the virtual server.

Eli Robillard has a good blog post on configuring a development server.