Network pics thread

CaseyBlackburn said:
How much RAM?

FDuPQ.png

4x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E7450 @ 2.40GHz
64GB Ram
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64, :)
 
MikeTrike said:
And here I was all excited with our XenBoxen.

The two Fibre Channel HV's are on the bottom, and the two iSCSI HV's are naturally on the top of the list; marked iscsi-pool.

Fiber HV Specs (times 2 HV's)
2 x AMD Opteron 6128 Magny-Cours 2.0GHz (16 cores total per HV)
8 x 8GB DDR3 Quad Pumped ECC Registered (64GB total per HV)
2 x 146GB SAS RAID1, because I was too stupid to boot from flash.
They are attached to our NetApp Array via 2 Fibre switches (pictured some posts ago)

iSCSI HV's (two also)
1 x AMD Opteron 6128 Magny-Cours 2.0GHz (8 cores total per HV)
4 x 4GB DDR3 Quad Pumped ECC Registered (16GB total per HV, soon to be 32GB per this weekend)
Sata Boot (for now also)

xenserver.jpg



I find myself virtualizing more servers every day... :D
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Sweet, how do you find Xen? And is the free version actually good or does it put all sorts of limitations to coax you to buy the more advanced one? I've been brainstorming what I want as my next home virtualization solution as I'd like to get into HA and multi server setups, and Xen looks like it could maybe fit the bill there.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Sweet, how do you find Xen? And is the free version actually good or does it put all sorts of limitations to coax you to buy the more advanced one? I've been brainstorming what I want as my next home virtualization solution as I'd like to get into HA and multi server setups, and Xen looks like it could maybe fit the bill there.
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I love Xen, especially Citrix XenServer.

Here's the edition comparison so you can see what you get and don't get.
http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/subfeature.asp?contentID=2300456

XenServer free if functional out of the box with the ability to use shared storage and XenMotion. If you need HA you'll need Advanced, which is $1000 per HV (around $860~ from a vendor like CDW or something).

Our iSCSI cluster is using XenServer free and our Fibre cluster has Enterprise, though I'm going to drop it to Advanced when it's due. Because we originally were going to use StorageLink, but opted not to because it's a single point of failure.

EDIT: This video gives a fantastic over of 5.0 (though it's up to 5.6 fp1 now) you still get a great idea of what XenServer can do.
http://www.citrix.com/tv/#videos/11

On a related note, the iSCSI array is on 5.6 fp1 and the Fibre array is on 5.6 both of which are solid.
 
Nice so you still get the live migration? So say a host goes down you can just manually start it up? That's good enough for me. If something is critical enough for true HA then chances are I'm making money with it and can just buy the full blown edition.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Nice so you still get the live migration? So say a host goes down you can just manually start it up? That's good enough for me. If something is critical enough for true HA then chances are I'm making money with it and can just buy the full blown edition.
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Exactly, XenMotion is included in the free version. You can manually move it live or if a HV goes down you can manually start it up on another HV. Assuming you're using shared storage of course. :)

EDIT: One more thing I like about XenServer in a multi-server environment. There is no single controller, each server retains a copy of the database for all cluster information. So if a HV goes down, one of the others takes over. :)
 
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Nice boxes, my 1x6128 runs VMs better than my client's hard servers do lol. Been configuring some ASA5505s...man they make me want to punch myself in the face. I like regular routers much better.

picture:

IMG_6258.jpg
 
I use XenServer free for my personal co-lo server its very good the only thing its missing over the pay version that I would love is memory management. If you give a system 1GB of ram then that 1GB is taken no matter if its in use or not.
 
Jay_oasis said:
I use XenServer free for my personal co-lo server its very good the only thing its missing over the pay version that I would love is memory management. If you give a system 1GB of ram then that 1GB is taken no matter if its in use or not.
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that's my issue... i've always overcommitted in esx
 
Yeah, however we have 64GB per HV on the big ones. So this feature is really not needed in our situation.

 
After 2 weeks of waiting, I finally got my server rails today:

lrg-1110-rails.JPG


I previously had bought that case thinking it would come with the rails. It's to convert my tower server into rackmount. Then I wont have anything outside of the rack anymore, should be a huge improvement.

I'm also waiting for a KVM console I ordered from ebay. It's been about a month. Sometimes I hate not living in the states. :p
 
Red Squirrel said:
After 2 weeks of waiting, I finally got my server rails today:

lrg-1110-rails.JPG


I previously had bought that case thinking it would come with the rails. It's to convert my tower server into rackmount. Then I wont have anything outside of the rack anymore, should be a huge improvement.

I'm also waiting for a KVM console I ordered from ebay. It's been about a month. Sometimes I hate not living in the states. :p
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How much did that run you? may need some replacements later for a client. It's now Time for you to get hookups in the us...ship to there then here. or set up a "coporation" lol
 
NTAuthourity said:
It's now Time for you to get hookups in the us...ship to there then here. or set up a "coporation" lol
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I live just about 15 minutes north of the border. There's a place I often get things shipped to just as you enter Washington state. Fantastic :D
 
NTAuthourity said:
How much did that run you? may need some replacements later for a client. It's now Time for you to get hookups in the us...ship to there then here. or set up a "coporation" lol
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About 24 bucks + 13 shipping or so

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...7&cm_re=istarusa_rails-_-16-215-017-_-Product

At least I think that'st he ones, they have 24" ones for a bit more expensive:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...8&cm_re=istarusa_rails-_-16-215-018-_-Product


The quality seems decent, but I did not rack mount the case yet.
 
ciggwin said:
This is for things like an ADTRAN or Cable modem? How exactly do they mount in there? (Yes I see what it says, but I'm confused :p) Anybody got any pics?
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Ports on the switch point straight up

Think of this switch :
97438.jpg


Inside on those rails...
 
ciggwin said:
This is for things like an ADTRAN or Cable modem? How exactly do they mount in there? (Yes I see what it says, but I'm confused :p) Anybody got any pics?
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They mount vertically, the rack ears would hang over the brackets that stick out near the top.

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dashpuppy said:
how big tho ?
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Diskless but I have 4 x 500GB disks to go into it. + 2 x 1TB USB Disks for backups. I will be using this to sync my datacenter server backups overnight back to the rack in the office and maybe use it as an iSCSI target for a couple of disks in the office.
 
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Heres the latest on my current project. We ran 4 cat5 cables to the building next door, piped the whole thing outside (was only like a 10' pipe or so)... and then decided to clean up the server room. We have a lot of wires and heres some shots of us organizing it. I put up a ladder rack today as well and right now the wires are bundled together and sorted, all slack is on top of rack for now so that the contractor can paint the floor to keep down dust. We're not painting the walls its in a basement storage area so no real need.

Some of the mess:

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Ladder rack is in, had to take a dremel to it to make it fit
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Starting to pull wires out to sort them (took us about 4-5 hours to sort through them all)

180972_1630247551488_1095570040_31463206_3379205_n.jpg


This is only like half the wires... we have everything from cameras, data, phone, alarm, access control
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Once hte floors painted we'll pull down what we need and hide the extra slack in the bulkhead... i was gonna put the extra slack on the rack (for a service loop) but i have this nice hollow bullk head in the back that i can hide the wires in.. so it'll look really neat and i can work on wires in the future if i need to.

Heres a video also if your on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/Vyc0r#!/video/video.php?v=1630579599789
 
Well yeah... i color code my wires

Blue - Data
White - Phone (still data, but go to a PoE switch)
White 18/2 - Alarm
Grey Access Conrol
Orange - Cat5 going to building next door
White Siamese - Cameras

Theres also some intercom wires thrown in... which are labeled.

My guys labeled everything but i wsant about to sit there and re-label 100+ wires... so we kept the access control/alarm labels and i chopped off the rest... i dont really care about having data/phone lines labeled, they all go to a switch... if i ever run into trouble, i can simply tone it out.
 
I officially have everything in my rack now.

Just converted my main server to rackmount today:


Yeah, it's a mess in there, but that's what non windowed covers are for. :p I will probably add another rear fan for ventilation. The case has lot of vents in the wrong places so I ended up putting plastic tape to cover them. I want the air flow to go from front to back and through the drive bays.

Racked up:


A view of my full rack:



Next on the agenda is cable management, but I want to build up a wall around the rack with lot of power outlets first, and have cable management stuff built into that setup. The rack is a bit flimsy even bolted down. Like I can push it and it moves a bit, so I want to make it more sturdy. Will probably put a 2x4 stud wall on both sides to "encase" it, and have removable plywood panels. All painted black. A project for later, out of money now.
 
Red Squirrel, you might be able to mount the top of the rack to the floor joists above the rack. Though doing so might make your house resonate with the rack :eek:

That said... "Nice rack!!" :D
 
marley1 said:
Adam you guys do nice wiring, how many guys at your shop?
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Well have about 4 guys fulltime who run wires and install cameras. 2 guys who help out from time to time. Then there are two of us in the support department (we fix computers, etc...) - i run the support department but i also wire up the networking equipment since its what i love to do and im an absolute neat freak. So i generally wire up that stuff.

For this job im actually wiring up the access panels, camera system, alarm system, networking, phone, everything. I had 2 guys run my wires and one of them worked with me yesterday organizing all the wires.

But really everything i share on here is stuff i've done.

We're looking to hire another support guy soon though to help me out
 
Red

Secure the top of the rack to the floor joists above to secure it, but use something to isolate the vibration. Look into unistrut, and find vibration dampeners that will work with it. As for the "install a bunch of outlets" thing, just install a 30A twistlock and a buy a UPS/PDU. Might as well buy the right stuff, doesn't really end up costing much more.
 
Adam said:
Well yeah... i color code my wires

Blue - Data
White - Phone (still data, but go to a PoE switch)
White 18/2 - Alarm
Grey Access Conrol
Orange - Cat5 going to building next door
White Siamese - Cameras

Theres also some intercom wires thrown in... which are labeled.

My guys labeled everything but i wsant about to sit there and re-label 100+ wires... so we kept the access control/alarm labels and i chopped off the rest... i dont really care about having data/phone lines labeled, they all go to a switch... if i ever run into trouble, i can simply tone it out.
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So with all the blue and white, you don't label them as to which drop they go to out in the office? That is what I am wondering - how do you know what port #41 on the patch panel goes out to in the office? Does it not really matter?

When I get my new office wired, I was hoping that I could have the drops all be in-line, basically drop #1 in the top left of the office, working counter clockwise around the office in some sort of order, so that it's easy to label and figure out where the drops actually are when looking at the patch panel.

 
Pretty easy to do using even a basic tester. I use this one, not super high quality but it works perfectly for me.
 
MinPins said:
Pretty easy to do using even a basic tester. I use this one, not super high quality but it works perfectly for me.
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So you can punch it down at the cube/office, stick the tester in, and then use the other part of the tester back in the cluster of wires that are not punched down to find the right one? Then you can punch it down in the correct port on the patch panel?

 
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