Setting up a web developer lab for learning purposes

I'm not a developer by profession. Therefore, I'm not exposed to real world technical problems that face professional developers. I read/heard about web farms, integration between different systems, load balancing ... etc.

Therefore, I was wondering if there are ways for the individual developer to create an environment that simulates real world situations with minimal number of machines like:

web farms & caching
simulating many users accessing your website (Pressure tests?)
Performance
load balancing
anything you think I should consider.

By the way, I have a server machine and 1 PC. and I don't mind investing in tools and software. PS. I'm using Microsoft technologies for development but I hope this is not a limiting factor.

Thanks

Solution

Since I am new, SO will not let me post more than one link, so I compiled a list of links for you at a pastebin here.