Mobile lab HW

I'm primarily a software nerd, but back in the day I did a fair bit of hands on work, but admittedly I'm a bit behind on current kit. There is a project at work that we are working on where we'd really like to be able to bring a mobile lab / classroom with us on the road. The rough requirements we are working against are as follows:

- Support for virtualization (VMware, KVM, Hyper-V)
- Minimum 16GB RAM per host, ideally 32GB
- Low power / Noise (potentially in small rooms with people so 1RU anything is out)
- Minimum 4 nodes for VMs, 1 management node and a small NAS (we've got this covered) but up to 10 total, and must be carry-on friendly.
- IPMI / lights out support (Integration with OOB management is part of what we are demoing)

Based on some preliminary research the Intel Avoton based 2550 and 2750 seem to be the most likely candidates. Does anyone have any other ideas (does AMD have something comparable) ? Based on research the Avoton's are kinda a mixed bag and wont do so great with enterprise type applications (read: bloated, java/.NET) and although we wont be benchmarking anything we want to have the environment be usable for real world / practical examples.

Lenovo W540 or
Dell Precision Mobile M6800
+ VMware Workstation

Assumes money is not an issue...
Gives you all but LOM ..but do you really need it?

The concept in play here is actually orchestrating & monitoring hardware to application, so OOB / LOM is non-negotiable from that perspective.

Also, laptops are kinda large and heavy. 3-4x the NUC and embedded platforms easily and generally are not quite as friendly towards this sort of scenario in my experience.

clockwork_ said:

The concept in play here is actually orchestrating & monitoring hardware to application, so OOB / LOM is non-negotiable from that perspective.

Also, laptops are kinda large and heavy. 3-4x the NUC and embedded platforms easily and generally are not quite as friendly towards this sort of scenario in my experience.

Click to expand...

Maybe you should provide a scenario of your use ..especially when it comes to mobile lab and "carry-on friendly".

In my mind, I keep picturing monitor, mouse, and keyboard per node ... just can't see that being carry-on friendly and weighing less than same number of well equipped laptops.

If it is strictly nodes for a portable lab..then yes ... hard to beat Avoton or MiniITX systems.

I would have guessed the part where I said mobile lab/classroom and OOB being required would have sufficed.

clockwork_ said:

I would have guessed the part where I said mobile lab/classroom and OOB being required would have sufficed.

Click to expand...

Just a matter of experience I guess.
Post up what you end up going with.

does vpro count as oob mgmt? it's available on the dell laptop.

It would as long as vPro includes AMT.

The individual nodes would not have monitors or keyboards, they would be headless. The instructor / presenter would have a laptop hooked to a projector or have students / demo folks hook into a web UI.

Pretty sure it does. The m6800 would probably be a good option, quad core i7, up to 32gb, up to 3 hard drives if you opt for a drive sled instead of dvd, so plenty of room for ssd's if you need local storage. If you don't need all the extra drive room, I believe the m4800 has vpro/quad i7 & 32gb options and more carry friendly than a 17" laptop.