Lab refresh time?

Discussion in 'Virtual and Cloud Computing' started by dales, Dec 22, 2011.

  1. dales

    dales Terabyte Poster

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    What do you guys have for your home lab setup. at the moment I've got 2 dell sc440s with 8GB ram in each a 4x500GB disks and an iomega ix2 for iscsi and nfs duties.

    I'm kind of thinking that it would be easier if I just built one homebrew box with 16GB ram and workstation 8 performing virtual duties maybe an ssd or two for the vm's to go on. I've had my current setup for a couple of years and I guess its starting to creak around the edges a bit now.

    Anyway what do you guys have or what would you change about your setup?
     
    Certifications: vExpert 2014+2015+2016,VCP-DT,CCE-V, CCE-AD, CCP-AD, CCEE, CCAA XenApp, CCA Netscaler, XenApp 6.5, XenDesktop 5 & Xenserver 6,VCP3+5,VTSP,MCSA MCDST MCP A+ ITIL F
    WIP: Nothing
  2. onoski

    onoski Terabyte Poster

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    Hi Dales, that's a good idea as I have two server physical quad boxes one AMD and the other Intel with one 5GB RAM and the other 6GB of RAM. I am however, thinking a long the same line as you as I use an old box Intel PC core dual for SCSI storage using OpenFiler.

    My main PC is a white box with 8GB of RAM, Quad core AMD 955 black edition processor. The hard drive is 1TB. I have VMware workstation 7 on this box and seeing that I have now passed the VCP 4 exam am waiting for my workstation version 8 copy.

    Talking about VMware workstation, I still haven't even received a confirmation e-mail from VMware acknowledging my passing the VCP 4 exam.

    It looks like they are not in a hurry to acknowledge those who take the time and effort to sit their exams etc. Well that's for another topic.
     
    Certifications: MCSE: 2003, MCSA: 2003 Messaging, MCP, HNC BIT, ITIL Fdn V3, SDI Fdn, VCP 4 & VCP 5
    WIP: MCTS:70-236, PowerShell
  3. dales

    dales Terabyte Poster

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    Yes I was thinking you can get 16gb in a fairly standard white box pc these days it might be better to ditch my 2 servers and use workstation instead of esxi especially since you can virtualize esxi in ws7 on wards. I got my task email last night and my workstation licence this morning after completing all the tasks. The email came 13 days after passing the exam.
     
    Certifications: vExpert 2014+2015+2016,VCP-DT,CCE-V, CCE-AD, CCP-AD, CCEE, CCAA XenApp, CCA Netscaler, XenApp 6.5, XenDesktop 5 & Xenserver 6,VCP3+5,VTSP,MCSA MCDST MCP A+ ITIL F
    WIP: Nothing
  4. craigie

    craigie Terabyte Poster

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    Was thinking the same thing recently, I used a single ML115 with 8GB RAM with the base OS Server 2003 Standard. Ran VMware Workstation 7 and then created 2 x ESXi Servers and OpenFiler.

    Need to pull my finger out and start reading my vSphere 5 book, does anyone know if you can nest ESXi 5?
     
    Certifications: CCA | CCENT | CCNA | CCNA:S | HP APC | HP ASE | ITILv3 | MCP | MCDST | MCITP: EA | MCTS:Vista | MCTS:Exch '07 | MCSA 2003 | MCSA:M 2003 | MCSA 2008 | MCSE | VCP5-DT | VCP4-DCV | VCP5-DCV | VCAP5-DCA | VCAP5-DCD | VMTSP | VTSP 4 | VTSP 5
  5. dales

    dales Terabyte Poster

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    Have a look here http://vinf.net/2011/05/27/vtardis-next-runs-on-vsphere-5-0/
     
    Certifications: vExpert 2014+2015+2016,VCP-DT,CCE-V, CCE-AD, CCP-AD, CCEE, CCAA XenApp, CCA Netscaler, XenApp 6.5, XenDesktop 5 & Xenserver 6,VCP3+5,VTSP,MCSA MCDST MCP A+ ITIL F
    WIP: Nothing
    craigie likes this.
  6. craigie

    craigie Terabyte Poster

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    Certifications: CCA | CCENT | CCNA | CCNA:S | HP APC | HP ASE | ITILv3 | MCP | MCDST | MCITP: EA | MCTS:Vista | MCTS:Exch '07 | MCSA 2003 | MCSA:M 2003 | MCSA 2008 | MCSE | VCP5-DT | VCP4-DCV | VCP5-DCV | VCAP5-DCA | VCAP5-DCD | VMTSP | VTSP 4 | VTSP 5
  7. dales

    dales Terabyte Poster

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    Yep, I think its cool just because of the project name!
     
    Certifications: vExpert 2014+2015+2016,VCP-DT,CCE-V, CCE-AD, CCP-AD, CCEE, CCAA XenApp, CCA Netscaler, XenApp 6.5, XenDesktop 5 & Xenserver 6,VCP3+5,VTSP,MCSA MCDST MCP A+ ITIL F
    WIP: Nothing
  8. Mikeyboy

    Mikeyboy Kilobyte Poster

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    I'm sure people may have seen in my other posts, but I have just got 2x Dell PowerEdge 1950, each with 2x Xeon 5150 CPUs and 8GB RAM in each. For my storage, I have a PC with an LSI Logic raid card in, and 4x 1tb drives - probably not the best setup for storage as it is on a RAID-5, but this is setup with 2 storage pools split into 3 partitions, so when the price of disks eventually come down I will probably chuck in some more faster disks and keep these dedicated to just my VMware setup.. in the middle of this I have a dell 24 port gigabit switch - complete overkill on most fronts there I think :)
     
    Certifications: VCP,MCSA, MCP, MCDST, MCITP, MCTS, A+, N+
  9. dales

    dales Terabyte Poster

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    Sounds like a nice setup actually.

    In the end I went for a homebrew, with 16GB ram an AMD Pheom (!?) 6 core slapped on a gigabyte motherboard. With a 500GB disk from one of my old sc440's. I'll get some ssd's next month all in all cost me about £350 so I'm quite happy.
     
    Certifications: vExpert 2014+2015+2016,VCP-DT,CCE-V, CCE-AD, CCP-AD, CCEE, CCAA XenApp, CCA Netscaler, XenApp 6.5, XenDesktop 5 & Xenserver 6,VCP3+5,VTSP,MCSA MCDST MCP A+ ITIL F
    WIP: Nothing
  10. craigie

    craigie Terabyte Poster

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    Finally got round to setting up my vSphere 5 lab.

    Single HP ML115 with 8GB RAM, ESXi5 booting from USB.

    2 x Nested ESXi5
    1 x VSA
    1 x OpenFiler

    Not the fastest but should do me fine.
     
    Certifications: CCA | CCENT | CCNA | CCNA:S | HP APC | HP ASE | ITILv3 | MCP | MCDST | MCITP: EA | MCTS:Vista | MCTS:Exch '07 | MCSA 2003 | MCSA:M 2003 | MCSA 2008 | MCSE | VCP5-DT | VCP4-DCV | VCP5-DCV | VCAP5-DCA | VCAP5-DCD | VMTSP | VTSP 4 | VTSP 5
  11. dales

    dales Terabyte Poster

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    Can I tempt sir!? SSD
     
    Certifications: vExpert 2014+2015+2016,VCP-DT,CCE-V, CCE-AD, CCP-AD, CCEE, CCAA XenApp, CCA Netscaler, XenApp 6.5, XenDesktop 5 & Xenserver 6,VCP3+5,VTSP,MCSA MCDST MCP A+ ITIL F
    WIP: Nothing

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