Man Cave Revamp

3one5

Gawd
Joined
Jan 6, 2005
Messages
579
I am in the process of revamping the Man / Nerd Cave. All of the old pictures are in this previous thread.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1038509477#post1038509477

I wasn't real happy with the old desk setup so I went a different direction. Some of that setup is below.

mc47.JPG



I ended up with a pile of really nice gear so I picked up a larger rack and plan to move that in. I have a class next week so I'm not going to get much done until I get back from that.
 
God bless you schapman43. That is a thing of beauty.

Are you going to add another row of 7matching monitors on top?
 
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Fantastic. Not even sure what I'd do with that many monitors, but I'd find something I'm sure :D
 
Alright, the new rack is in and all my gear moved over. That took a couple days on and off. I have a lot of services running on this gear so a bulk had to be done late at night to limit the outage.

mc48.JPG


I have the rest of the ladder rack ordered and it should be in next week. Once that is installed I can get the wire and fiber off the floor.
 
Bah, now that I sit and look at the picture I should probably dig around for a black 2 post rack :) Damn you OCD!!!
 
... I have a lot of services running on this gear so a bulk had to be done late at night to limit the outage. ..

It would be cool if you could go into a little more detail about what's running on the various machines and why you ended up with the machines that you did. I mean, you mentioned in the original thread that you run your own email, IM, etc, which is fair enough, but does that really take 2 racks full of gear?
Couldn't you run all that off just one server, with one switch and a firewall?
 
I could do a lot of this with less gear but I have production and development environments. I need a lot of room to in the sandbox to play. Most of everything I do is virtualized and could easily run on the single box. But there are some things that you need multiple boxes to play around with. I also like to run my firewall on a separate box. Then there is the malware analysis that I like to keep segregated physically.

I'll get a picture of the rack door open so you guys get a better idea of the gear I have.
 
Here is a picture of what I have in the rack.

mc49.JPG


From top to bottom:
QNAP NAS 24TB Storage
HP Proliant G7 DL360, Dual Quad Core Xeon, 32GB Memory
HP Proliant G7 DL360, Dual Quad Core Xeon, 32GB Memory
HP Proliant G7 DL380, Dual Quad Core Xeon, 32GB Memory, 1.2 TB Storage
EMC SAN 3TB Storage
EMC SAN Battery Backup
EMC SAN Controller
Dell 2950, 2 Dual Core Xeon, 16GB Memory
Dell R910, Dual 6 Core Xeon, 64 GB Memory
10 Poweredge 1955 Blade Servers, Dual Quad Core Xeon, 32GB Memory
APC 3000 Battery Backup
 
Ladder rack came in today but I didn't get a chance to get over and pick it up. What's better is that I was promoted to Systems Engineering Manager! It will take some time to get used to the new role. Not sure how I'll feel moving from doing the work to planning for others to do the work. I love the technical side of things....
 
Ladder rack came in today but I didn't get a chance to get over and pick it up. What's better is that I was promoted to Systems Engineering Manager! It will take some time to get used to the new role. Not sure how I'll feel moving from doing the work to planning for others to do the work. I love the technical side of things....

Congrats! Surely if you're still directly involved in the projects then you're still dealing with the "technical side", you just get to make the decisions rather than do mundane tasks :)
 
Congrats! Surely if you're still directly involved in the projects then you're still dealing with the "technical side", you just get to make the decisions rather than do mundane tasks :)

This is true. I'm also still directly responsible for info and net security. Between that and the stuff at home I should be able to get my fill.

I need to get the rest of the stuff I need to hang the cable ladder. Hopefully sometime this next week.
 
How's this going schapman

Going well. I had hoped that my mounting hardware for the ladder rack would be in today but looks like I will be waiting until Monday. I will probably get the support brace that I do have up on the wall so that Monday will be a quick and easy job. I should probably get 1000' spool of CAT5e or CAT6 or order so I can get on that once the ladder rack is up.
 
Ladder rack is up. The rest of the supports for it should be in tomorrow.

mc50.JPG
 
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3one5 awesome man cave! Can you share what type of work you do that requires that kind of setup?
 
3one5 awesome man cave! Can you share what type of work you do that requires that kind of setup?

Well, I was recently promoted (demoted? ;) ) to Systems Engineering Manager so hopefully I'm not taken to far away from the fun. I am still primarily responsible for netsec/infosec/forensics so I'm guaranteed a little bit of fun.

I play, I research, I host my own "cloud" services and my favorite.... shenanigans.
 
Wife is out of town for the morning so I was able to get a little bit of work done. I installed the anchors using SAMMY threaded rod anchors. These worked very well and were fairly inexpensive compared to some of the other options out there. I was also able to poke a hole in the ceiling and make my first run. I have a run of fiber up there down along with a piece of paracord so I can run a bunch of other cables through there. I now need to grab a 1000ft spool of cat6 and bribe an electrician at work with some beer. I've also been looking for a black 2 post rack to replace the silver one.

mc51.jpg


mc52.jpg
 
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What in Gods name is going on here. And why do I feel like I am in love!
 
This looks like paradise. I can't wait to get a space like this to spread my wings in.

Why not put a grill in the window so you never have to leave?
 
Yes, sorry, I have made a bit of progress. Finally swapped the silver rack for a black one and I think it looks a whole lot better. I will work on getting pics up tonight.
 
Excuse the cables hanging everywhere. The Wife and kids are out of town so I have a bit of extra free time to play.

Put a ceiling mounted monitor up, thought I would share.

UWd1zJo.jpg
 
Absolutely amazing!!! . . . My little room with its small desk, chair and couch pales in comparison.

Cheers

Fen
 
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