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Hey - thanks for your detailed reply. I am way below the level of the Nexus line at the moment, I just passed my CCENT this week and currently studying now for the ICND2 then I am onwards to the CCNP R&S. So far VIRL is pretty awesome, it can do everything and more that my "real gear" lab can...

So I went with your advice, did a bit of reading and for the level I am at (below Nexus etc atm) I think its a good purchase so I went ahead and bought it tonight (VIRL). Just waiting for the download link now, will let you know what I think once I have it. Thanks all

Interesting that you mention VIRL I've been keeping my eye on it for a while but it seemed to get mixed reviews. The problem for me with real gear is IOS 15 and the "new" licensing model, it's near impossible now to run the latest / greatest at home without spending a small fortune. I am...

Thanks guys In the end I went a bit crazy as I'm building for future certs: 2 X Cisco 3750E 1 X Cisco 4948-10GE-S (upgrade from a Dell PC 5524 for ISCSI / VMware lab) 1 X Juniper EX3200 .....and currently trying to buy a 4948E Noticed there are some OSPF command differences between 12.x and...

Hi guys I'm slowly building up a solid lab for the CCNP, I know I could virtualise to some extent and / or run GNS3 but I want real gear for the following additional reasons: 1. I have a VMware lab and would like something that doubles study and performance 2. I want gigabit can I use...

I am extremely interested in VMware NSX and SDN but what I would like to know is does anyone have any solid experience with using it in production? I'm not talking about a slice of its components but I am talking a full scale NSX SDN deployment, DLR, DFW, ESG, Controllers - the full works...

I've been looking at the Mellanox ConnectX-3 cards also, they are actually not badly priced now compared to when I last looked!! Must admit I am tempted. Broad comment but I'm assuming QSFP to SFP breakout cables are supported as well?

Sorry - yes that's right. I did contact them and they just said it should work but it doesn't, just wondering has anyone else on here tried it and is it working for them? I upgraded from 5.5 to 6.0 and used the exact build that the download link in VMUG offers for vSphere 6.

I know it lists it as that is why I decided to purchase the sub. About 1-2 weeks ago max.

I have 3 of these and use Brocade SFPs, they work flawlessly I am really happy with them and the combined cost of 3 x Brocade 1020's plus the SFPs was pretty good. I bought a job lot of 4 x Brocade 10GE SFPs for about $90.

Hi all I am wondering if this has the full vSphere 6 licensing available now? I purchased a subscription myself and can license vCenter Server 6 but cannot license vSphere ESXi 6, the included key with "VMware vSphere with Operations Management Enterprise Plus" only seems to work with 5.5! Has...

Hi all I am hoping to get a concensus vote on how to spend my hard earned, I am in the UK and looking to spend a total of $1492.00 (£1000) on switch(es) in order to build a reasonably modern lab in order to advance skills and provide high performance to my ESXi environment. What would you...

Ok I see thanks for the clarification. I am currently running both a 5.5 and 6.0 lab at home (blame legacy software on the 5.5 deployment) - the 5.5 lab has just got NSX installed (trial) which I am really excited about, took a lot of emails to / from our VMware contact, so I will be using that...

I was wondering this too around 5.5, if I purchase licenses now I get 5.5 and then 6.0 is released do you get to retain the 5.5 licenses until the end of their annual term AND receive 6.0 licenses? If not there is little point in buying now.

Hi all I am ready to pull the purchasing trigger on this subscription but do you receive vSphere 6 license keys yet or is it still 5.5? It is a shame that they do not include NSX licenses. :D Thanks

Yeah I noticed that and was just about to post but you beat me to it :-) Question for you, can you recommend an eBay (UK) sourced switch that in your experience would best serve the feature set required to play with SDN, OpenFlow / sFLOW, VXLAN, VTEP etc etc I know I can do this without hardware...

I've just renewed my sub to pluralsight.com based on what you have written above, I had let the sub die out but not checked back for new content in a while (I was using INE.COM for other study) thanks for the info, I am going to work through your training courses with the HOL and see how I go...

Thanks - the main element I am interested in is the openflow functionality and I read that has a nice port buffer allocation so would be good for running my ISCSI traffic through it. It would also have the premium license. Do you know if the 1GbE ports are only limited to uplinks / stacking...

I also noted that VMware was previously offering invitation only training on NSX, great, but that doesn't help distribute the product into the market majority. How is one to sell / recommend this excellent product to the board if you cannot even get access to it? (unlike HP's offering :-) ) In...

The reason is quite simple, because HP is significantly more accessible and cheaper to use at home in a lab environment than what Cisco and VMware offer in terms of ACI and NSX (unless you have company / corporate backing). How do I attain experience with ACI and NSX outside of a corporate...

Ok I think I've set my mind on a HP ProCurve 3500yl, its about the cheapist switch I can find that has OpenFlow 1.3 support (and I can use it wiith HP VAN SDN Controller). I wonder if anyone is using one of these switches in the lab?

Hi guys I have two quick questions that I thought would be best served in one post :) 1. Does anyone know of any cheapish eBay switch(es) I could pickup which have full OpenFlow support? 2. I have a couple of Dell Power Connect 5524 switches and would like to hook up the 10GbE ports into my...

Hi guys Good links - what about podcasts for when reading would be hazzardous to your health? My favourite for podcasts is: http://packetpushers.net/ I'm still trying to find a good Linux podcast provider that isn't old / out of date and updated often.

I have just literally started playing around with SDN and wondered who else here is currently doing this and do you share the view that it is an area worth investing time into at this point? Currently this is my setup (today so still evolving): 1. VMware ESXi 6.0 2. HP VAN SDN...

Some awesome otherworldly like setups in here! I'm slowly building up my lab having sold off alot of it a couple of years ago. 2 x Dell R410's with 2 x Intel Xeon E5530's, 16GB RAM, Quad Gigabit NICs, No internal storage ATM - USB booted to ESXi 5.5. ---> ISCSI based. 1 x Custom Whitebox with...

Say thats a nice rack! :D How are you finding the Dell R410's? power consumption ok? I just bought a couple of R410's as I thought they were good value but haven't had them running long enough to get an accurate reading of power consumption, seems reasonable though in the time I have. Like...

Congrats on the VCA-DCV, I am also trying to get serious on the VCP5-DCV (VCP550), just started a free trial of CBT Nuggets to check out the videos they have on this exam (I wanted to use Pluralsight but I couldn't find anything recent that covered the 5.5 version of the exam!) and also going...

Thanks for the tip re: Observium, I have just started using this myself based on your post and so far I'm very impressed with it! :D Jay what device are you using to generate the temps and humidity? is it a rack monitor device like NetBotz??

Poor show on VMware's side, I was going to upgrade my home lab to 5.5 but with these problems and the HW V10 "issue" I'm staying put for now until I can test it and make sure there are drivers to support my builds.

Thats probably very low utilisation then, I was using it in a Production environment and all of us but one guy found it buggy and difficult to work with when you factor in time is money :-) , I don't think there is any reason to use it now that Citrix XenServer is free with full HA / XenMotion...

Hi all Just wondering if anyone has played around with IPoIB in ESXi 5.1 and if so what kind of speeds are you seeing in terms of data transfer using the IB fabric? (I understand the Mellanox OFED drivers don't work with 5.5 which is why I haven't upgraded yet :) ) Here's my basic setup...

It's not the ISP's that is the problem, it's BT. I agree with you though.

Nice desk - what is creating that cool lighting effect on the walls and door? Also the blade chassis is something I was looking at purchasing myself, do you leave it running all the time or on the occasion you need to test something? does it draw a lot of power?

Awesome thanks

Cool - thanks, what do you constitute consumer? home user or business user or both, if your talking home user then yeah I can see that :D I would really like to hear how you get on with it once you've set it up if you don't mind, that would be awesome as I am in the market for a half decent...

Can you load the enhanced image on the standard switch like you can with a 3550? cheers

Is this true? I'm in the market for a top end Cisco giabit iSCSI based switch and I don't see the 4948 switch being cheaper than a Nexus 3k, which model(s) are you referring to?

Plus this is hardforum right? so don't we go with crazy solutions ;)

Awesome - thanks - but of the two I listed, which one? the enhanced image model or the standard? does it matter in the context I have stated? Thanks very much for your info

That's great around the RAM and CPU maximums but what about storage / HDD what is that looking like and have you ran any performance monitoring on that medium such as average service time, wait io, latency from request to servce IO etc? you need to run it whilst the users are complaining of...