Network pics thread

IMG_0559.JPG

Looked, but I couldn't find it anywhere... looks like a hybrid raid controller? Adaptec?
 
The 4006 series switches are great, I have one of them here. Let me know if you find a good place for the rackmount brackets
 
Updates at work:

Picked up a PE860, X3440, 8gb, Perc6i, 146gb SAS, and rails for $150
I now have a baller VPN server for our roadwarriors and two site to site links
=

was this found locally? or online...

also how do you find a local recyclers like that?

im jelly
 
I got Dell PowerEdge 860 Server Dual Core Xeon 2.13GHz / 4GB RAM Perc5i SAS / SATA (no disks) for $100 of ebay
 
Again, why would anyone work at such a place? The people who have the most knowledge about the requirements aren't allowed to make the correct decision, you're nothing near "perfection" -- not even near "adequate" or "sustainable". Sure, lots of companies work this way; must most companies fail, and the rest operate at an inefficiency that serves neither customer nor employee.

If lower-level employees don't have the courage to talk to people a level or two above themselves, management will never get the information they need to make better decisions if the framework remains at its status quo. Does information really never travel up the hierarchy at such companies?

Having worked for a large company (300,000 employees) to smaller, but rich companies (300-400 employees), I learned a lot.

If you're a big company, imagine if every technology person bought whatever they want or even worse, changed configs whenever the felt like it without telling anyone ... the company would fall over in a matter of minutes. The larger you are, the slower you become, and the less you trust your employees ... these controls are necessary for the company to function. Some companies do it A LOT worse than others, though. And honestly most low level employees would waste upper management's time ... with the exception of a few gems in the rough. Yes, most upper level managers are scumbags but the point is still valid.

Now I worked for a few smaller wealthy firms after and I have no desire to go back to a huge corp. I'm not going to list the benefits because I don't want to get lynched. But in terms of work, we can buy whatever we want and make changes whenever we want without approval. If we grow too big, that will have to stop.

However, I still don't regret for one second working for that big corp.

(Also I guess I'll post some pics later of a Nexus 3K since I wrote a novel)
 
If you're a big company, imagine if every technology person bought whatever they want or even worse, changed configs whenever the felt like it without telling anyone ... the company would fall over in a matter of minutes. The larger you are, the slower you become, and the less you trust your employees ... these controls are necessary for the company to function.
Some controls are necessary. You've jumped to the conclusion that I'm suggestion people buy whatever they want without approval, or change things without any documentation or review whatsoever. That's not what I suggested, as complete autonomy doesn't work with more than four or five people.

You seem to believe the other extreme is that you must be slow, just to be big. That isn't true, either. Friction increases with size, but it doesn't need to be overwhelming. There are many cases when doing the right thing without approval is better in the short term for customers than waiting for review and approval and then doing something everyone agrees on.

The trick is hiring people who are smart enough to make good decisions, and nobody else. Once you start working with people who don't meet that bar, mistakes will be made and you'll be full of regret. Careful hiring and sensible (but, by some standards, lenient) policies and procedures are the medium between your two presumed extremes where the sweet spot lies.
 
was this found locally? or online...

also how do you find a local recyclers like that?

im jelly

Local at a ewaste recycler who advertizes on craigslist. Go to seattle.craigslist.org and type in sbk or servers/xeon/scsi ect and you will get 1/2 a dozen places with retail stores. (I am down in Portland- if anyone wants to join me and a friend "junk store" hunting, pm me, we try to go twice a month.)
 
Dash; what amde you go ScreenOS over JUNOS? just curious, as most people I talk to are going JUNOS for new deployment, and jsut using the SSG's if that's what is already on site.
 
Dash; what amde you go ScreenOS over JUNOS? just curious, as most people I talk to are going JUNOS for new deployment, and jsut using the SSG's if that's what is already on site.

It's not mine, was deployment by me with the hspa blue tree cellular modem :) I had to set it up and configure it for the install, they said i could test it at home, having them say that i did, and found out they sent the wrong antenna :) so i got to drool over it for a day or so and play.. Was pretty quick connection with "bell".


Looks like he bought it for his home lab.

it was in my home lab rack, but it's not mine, i did let it have sex with my TZ210 LOL or vice versa!
 
Got to play around with this thing yesterday. It's a nice fast SAN but, sheesh, talk about cabling nightmare. For the record, I didn't install it, just got to play with it.


I can't wait to be trained on this stuff in chicago, i will post TONS of pictures of the training labs and stuff when im there..
 
Good luck. Unisphere has to be about the most retarded SAN interface I've ever had the mispleasure of working with. Hell, even Lefthand was more intuitive.
 
Good luck. Unisphere has to be about the most retarded SAN interface I've ever had the mispleasure of working with. Hell, even Lefthand was more intuitive.

It's part of my job, i have to have this training, i believe mainly all hardware & repairs tho, but i will be trained on software too, its a 2 week course.
 
I finally got to the end of this post and thought it might be time to share.

When I started, this building had a half dozen different switches with whatever patch cords they could find thrown into the rack. just draping the cables in front of everything.

Things were going great with the new install until...

The 4506-e did not have enough switch modules for the number of drops. Then the second switch ran out of ports because we could not remove the AD controller like the server team was hoping.

Then the only fiber we had in stock for the uplink for the two switches was this massive bundle.

Also no brackets to mount the 2811 which added to the pain.
Then the finally slap... the cable order was shipped 3/4 blue and the last 1/4 this ugly purple color.

workrack1.jpg

workrack2.jpg


wish I had a before picture, but oh well.
 
Good luck. Unisphere has to be about the most retarded SAN interface I've ever had the mispleasure of working with. Hell, even Lefthand was more intuitive.

Ha, I deal with it pretty much everyday...
Let me know if you have any issues :)
Nice Argonaut BTW.
 
I've been putting together a new server farm for a while...thought I would share some of the pictures.

The two switches on the back top are Cisco Catalyst 3750-X 48-port Gigabit.

The four SuperMicro server in the right rack run Citrix XenServer. Each is a dual quad-core xeon with 48gb ram and 6 gigabit NICs. There are three bonded NIC pairs in each server (production, storage, management).

The two Dell R710 servers run MSSQL 2008R2 in a clustered setup. Each server is a single quad core xeon with 24gb ram.

All NICs are bonded into LACP 2GB bonds.

Two Server racks:
XzksFl.jpg


Left Rack:
SuperMicro Chassis with 16TB storage in Raid 10
SuperMicro Chassis with 16TB storage in Raid 10
6 Nodes of an HP/LeftHand P4300 G2 SAN ( 21TB raw )

Right Rack:
Avocent 16 Port IP-KVM
SuperMicro Appliance Chassis
Four SuperMicro servers
Two Dell R710 Servers

Storage Side cabling:
VqbC2l.jpg

wvfljl.jpg


Server side cabling:
xBCIDl.jpg

wftUll.jpg


Dark shot:
8zC2Sl.jpg
 
Last edited:
The two Dell R710 servers run MSSQL 2008R2 in a clustered setup. Each server is a single quad core xeon with 24gb ram.
Why clustered and not mirrored?

Server side cabling:
It looks nice and tidy, but I wonder why you route the cables so tightly. This makes it impossible to slide out a machine from the rack without disconnecting it first.
 
Why clustered and not mirrored?

It looks nice and tidy, but I wonder why you route the cables so tightly. This makes it impossible to slide out a machine from the rack without disconnecting it first.

I was also wondering this, would be a bitch for a tech like me to come in and change the main board or cpu etc etc etc etc..
 
I was also wondering this, would be a bitch for a tech like me to come in and change the main board or cpu etc etc etc etc..

Hot swapping CPU's and mainboards these days are we? Maybe a fan or some RAM would be difficult with it tied up like that, but any of the things you suggested would not be done with the machine was online or plugged in and offline for that matter. I do agree that it would be a bitch. Some rails that slide with the server would be ideal to replace things you could replace without going behind it.
 
Hot swapping CPU's and mainboards these days are we? Maybe a fan or some RAM would be difficult with it tied up like that, but any of the things you suggested would not be done with the machine was online or plugged in and offline for that matter. I do agree that it would be a bitch. Some rails that slide with the server would be ideal to replace things you could replace without going behind it.

hot swapping ram or cpu ? What ? I was stating doing any repairs on the unit would be a bitch.
 
Why clustered and not mirrored?

It looks nice and tidy, but I wonder why you route the cables so tightly. This makes it impossible to slide out a machine from the rack without disconnecting it first.

Clustered because there are quite a few databases running on the cluster. Second, I only need one license of SQL Enterprise if they're clustered.

The cables are tidy because I hate the cabling arms that come with servers from Dell, etc. I won't use them anymore. I really really loathe them. Anyway, the reason I have open racks is so that I can reach through and get to the servers easily. Also, they are a good two feet or so away from the back wall, so really easy to get back behind them. Those SuperMicro servers and Dell servers can pull out fully on the rails, as long as everything is disconnected.

One other thing...the PDU's each go to a different circuit breaker and each server has two power supplies, one to each breaker. You can see the PDU has a gray and black plugin. If I were to accidentally kick out the bottom plugs, everything stays online because the other cables are routed to the top of the wall.

By the way...that IPKVM is hooked up now and cables routed appropriately. Haha. I took the pictures before. I had to order a different length cable from Avocent so I didn't have excessive cableage. I hate excessive cables running around. My OCD gets the best of me.
 
Last edited:
If I were to accidentally kick out the bottom plugs, everything stays online because the other cables are routed to the top of the wall.

I grabbed a heavy duty cable runner, because I don't have raised flooring either. :(

http://www.cableprotector.com/

However I'm waiting on a quote for raised flooring and to make my server room have a hot/cold side. :D
 
Clustered because there are quite a few databases running on the cluster. Second, I only need one license of SQL Enterprise if they're clustered.

The cables are tidy because I hate the cabling arms that come with servers from Dell, etc. I won't use them anymore. I really really loathe them. Anyway, the reason I have open racks is so that I can reach through and get to the servers easily. Also, they are a good two feet or so away from the back wall, so really easy to get back behind them. Those SuperMicro servers and Dell servers can pull out fully on the rails, as long as everything is disconnected.

One other thing...the PDU's each go to a different circuit breaker and each server has two power supplies, one to each breaker. You can see the PDU has a gray and black plugin. If I were to accidentally kick out the bottom plugs, everything stays online because the other cables are routed to the top of the wall.

By the way...that IPKVM is hooked up now and cables routed appropriately. Haha. I took the pictures before. I had to order a different length cable from Avocent so I didn't have excessive cableage. I hate excessive cables running around. My OCD gets the best of me.

your ocd is paying off tho :) all that looks awesome..
 
NetworkCloset.jpg


Been admiring awhile and figured it's time to post my meager home network...

Clockwise:

WRT54G (WRT300N on second level) Both running DD-WRT
Netgear GS108
pfSense - Atom 230 & 1GB RAM
WHS - Atom 330 & 4GB RAM

pfSDash-1.jpg


WHSStorage.jpg
 
RackClean.jpg


CCNP/CCIE Lab

2801 x3
1760x3
2610XM x2
2611XM
3640 for Frame Relay and access Server
Not pictured here 2950x2, 2900XL, 3548, UC 520 for CCNA Voice and IAD 881W as my NAT router.
 
Back
Top