Network pics thread

Just started a new job about a month ago and am the sole IT guy for the company.....as you can see lots of work to be done in the server room.

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I took some video after I moved some stuff around...I will have to post that as well as some more pics of the progress.

I built a new backup server the second week I was there and am still in the process of testing backup procedures as it is a mixed Mac/PC environment. Running OpenIndiana with a striped raidz2 array of 16 WD RE4 2TB drives (22 TB usable).

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And yes thats a beer BTW, one of the perks of this job is that I can drink at work....yeah I know your jealous!

Here is the video...you can see a lot of improvement went into this, moved the UPS's over from the single rack to have them load balanced between the racks and cleaned up quite a bit of cabling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=611YdxkuXog
 
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Been working on this lately,

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Got home today, and my 23" lcd arrived, the matching one that i got for free a few weeks ago.

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Stopped by my favorite ewaste place and ended up with more useless gear to bring home. New rule: for every piece I bring home I need to take 2x back.

$38 got me the following
101oi.jpg

By thespyder at 2011-11-07
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By thespyder at 2011-11-07
1) Cisco 1841 (stock)
2) Cisco WIC 1DSU T1 V2- still sealed in OEM packaging
3) Cisco 1231G
4) APC basic PDU
5) 2 Zalman fanless heatsinks for my Atom boxes
6) 2 SAS 8047 to x4 SATA


Along with a 881w: I got earlier this year that I have yet to setup.
110rlu.jpg

By thespyder at 2011-11-07

A friend gave me this awesome little rack, now I can put my lab under my desk.
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By thespyder at 2011-11-07
 
Krazypoloc - Thats a big job for you to get sorted.

Do I see red lights on the APC UPS at the bottom?
 
Krazypoloc said:
I built a new backup server the second week I was there and am still in the process of testing backup procedures as it is a mixed Mac/PC environment. Running OpenIndiana with a striped raidz2 array of 16 WD RE4 2TB drives (22 TB usable).
Click to expand...

What hardware (motherboard, cpu, raid/sata card etc?) and why did you opt for OpenIndiana?

I'm currently running WHS2011 on a couple of the little HP Microservers but have been toying with the idea of going back to something like FreeNAS. I have what looks like the same supermicro chasis as your picture (with 15x SATA bays) but the motherboard is pants and the 3x PSU will probably want replacing for something more efficient too.
 
Jay_oasis said:
Krazypoloc - Thats a big job for you to get sorted.

Do I see red lights on the APC UPS at the bottom?
Click to expand...

Wow yeah that looks pretty bad.

Red lights are just a reminder that job security is about to happen. Let it fail. :D Just kidding of course.
 
ChRoNo16 said:
That's one thing I have yet to encounter in my IT experience, is the chain link fence locking up the lab.
Click to expand...

Jay_oasis said:
If you go to a datacenter you'll see it. I have done a lot of time in teledata median gate in London. You can only get suites there and they are locked off and divided in that way.
Click to expand...

It's that way in the states, too. You can either buy a locked cabinet or a "cage" which is a bunch of contiguous unlocked cabinets surrounded by cyclone fencing.

This is the walkway to our cage and you can see the fence on either side marking off people's cages:
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Jay_oasis said:
Krazypoloc - Thats a big job for you to get sorted.

Do I see red lights on the APC UPS at the bottom?
Click to expand...
Yes it is a big job!

And YES 4 out of the 6 UPS's that they had in place had bad batteries! These have since been changed out for new batteries and I balanced the load on the poor little UPS's, I got in and the 4Kw TrippLite 6U UPS only had 18% load on it while the APC 1500 and 2200 units were at 99% load....wtf right!
ltickett said:
What hardware (motherboard, cpu, raid/sata card etc?) and why did you opt for OpenIndiana?

I'm currently running WHS2011 on a couple of the little HP Microservers but have been toying with the idea of going back to something like FreeNAS. I have what looks like the same supermicro chasis as your picture (with 15x SATA bays) but the motherboard is pants and the 3x PSU will probably want replacing for something more efficient too.
Click to expand...
This is the build list for the server. Its been rock solid stable and is running extremely fast with both NIC's trunked to the HP switch. Openindiana seems like an up and coming project and it has ZFS and napp-it so my boss can administer it if I am OOO or on vacation. Oh and its free. I was going to go with Nexenta but I ran into the 18TB storage limit and didn't want to pay $4k for an enterprice license.

4 Kingston 4GB ECC Registered Memory Modules (KVR1333D3LD8R9S/4GEC)
18 (16 active /w 2 spares) Western Digital 2 TB SATA Drives (RE4 WD2003FYYS)
SUPERMICRO CSE-836TQ-R800B chassis
SUPERMICRO MBD-X8SIA-F-O motherboard
LSI SAS 9201-16i HBA SAS Card
Intel Xeon L3426 Lynnfield (BX80605L3426)
Red Squirrel said:
Wow yeah that looks pretty bad.

Red lights are just a reminder that job security is about to happen. Let it fail. :D Just kidding of course.
Click to expand...
Haha...right...yeah that littler APC 1500 actually power cycled a few times die to the load+bad battery...took part of the network down...
 
We've been moving out of Colo4 in Dallas, TX to Global IP Networks in Plano, TX

FUN! We have like 90% of everything moved, we should be 100% by the end of the month. We've had two very large bills for the last couple of months. On the upside, we replaced our aging 4000 series Cisco's for two 6509-E's and we'll be running 10Gig uplinks to Abovenet and Level 3. :D
 
The Spyder said:
Stopped by my favorite ewaste place and ended up with more useless gear to bring home. New rule: for every piece I bring home I need to take 2x back.
Click to expand...

For everything you bring home you need to list a thread on stuff you want to part with.. I'd take that 881 off your hands in a heartbeat
 
Don't worry, I am working a deal on 20 switches/routers to list here for people who want lab gear. Its all well used, but tested and cheap. :)
The 881 was a CL score for $200, which was not a bad deal.
 
4000 series switches are great. I have one here. Just wish I had the cash to get gigabit blades for it.
 
ChRoNo16 said:
4000 series switches are great. I have one here. Just wish I had the cash to get gigabit blades for it.
Click to expand...

That they are, they were running multi gigabit links. So the up to multi 10 gigabit links on the 6509-E's is pretty awesome. We're still trying to get some Juniper stuff to replace the E's, but they are not cheap; so we'll see. :)
 
I've been lurking for a while and decided to finally contribute.

Started at my company about a year ago. Have been working on cleaning up the DC for the past 9 months. I wish I had taken more before shots.

Network Racks Before:

The white cables was the premise wiring for workstations. These patches panels and switches were moved to the room next door. The blue cables down the row were poorly self made directly connecting servers to the single core switch, little to no labeling.

Network Racks After:

Horizontal wiring is all CAT 6A as well as the patch cables. Dual 4506-E core switches.
 
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Been having HUGE issues with ShawCable, where i live :( i'm paying for a 35 down & 2.5 up, and im getting 15max down durig day when no one is home in this area and at night i get between 2-5 down at night :(

So the replaced my modem, with this new Cisco unit.

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AND BEHOLD im still on a crappy download, the tech that comes out keeps telling them changing modems won't help. It's a saturation issue for sure, new subdevision..
 
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That's too bad. I get 30-50mbps down at any time throughout the day/night with Shaw. :D I hate their shitty new SMC modem/router combos though :(
 
Avey are those switches layer 4 switches? If so what made you want layer 4 switching do you use it to priorities certain traffic or is it the really cool load balancing that you use?
 
Jay_oasis said:
Avey are those switches layer 4 switches? If so what made you want layer 4 switching do you use it to priorities certain traffic or is it the really cool load balancing that you use?
Click to expand...

Who are you asking? L4 switch really just means that the device can make some decisions based on L4 information (ACL blocking TCP 80, for instance). That's basically every MLS/L3 switch on the market.
 
I am asking Avey. L4 can also do some pretty cool load balancing tricks as well though
 
avey said:
I've been lurking for a while and decided to finally contribute.

Started at my company about a year ago. Have been working on cleaning up the DC for the past 9 months. I wish I had taken more before shots.

Network Racks Before:
http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/5532/nwracksbefore.jpg
The white cables was the premise wiring for workstations. These patches panels and switches were moved to the room next door. The blue cables down the row were poorly self made directly connecting servers to the single core switch, little to no labeling.

Network Racks After:
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/4464/nwracksafter.jpg
Horizontal wiring is all CAT 6A as well as the patch cables. Dual 4506-E core switches.
Click to expand...

AWESOME JOB!!!
 
dashpuppy said:
Been having HUGE issues with ShawCable, where i live :( i'm paying for a 35 ^ & 2.5 down, and im getting 15max down durig day when no one is home in this area and at night i get between 2-5 down at night :(

So the replaced my modem, with this new Cisco unit.

AND BEHOLD im still on a crappy download, the tech that comes out keeps telling them changing modems won't help. It's a saturation issue for sure, new subdevision..
Click to expand...

I'm paying for 100/5 and I can barely get over 50 (54 max). I'm going to call Shaw and if they can't help I'll just downgrade to 50.
 
Avey, the first picture made me want to pull my hair out, but the after makes me want to cry! LOL
 
JohnYYC said:
You sure that's not 25 down and 2.5 up? Shaw doesn't offer anything to home or small business users with a 35 up or down.
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fixed :) was typing with child on my lap was hard to focus with her grabbing things..
 
That's because Shaw is utter shit... at least around here. You'll NEVER get your speed. DSL here is much, much better. Same speed all the time, never down. 25/5 DSL here.
 
/usr/home said:
That's because Shaw is utter shit... at least around here. You'll NEVER get your speed. DSL here is much, much better. Same speed all the time, never down. 25/5 DSL here.
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Yeah, I called Telus, they can offer me 5 down & 500k up NO THANKS and they block port 80 as a new business policy.
 
avey said:
I've been lurking for a while and decided to finally contribute.

Started at my company about a year ago. Have been working on cleaning up the DC for the past 9 months. I wish I had taken more before shots.

Network Racks Before:
nwracksbefore.jpg

The white cables was the premise wiring for workstations. These patches panels and switches were moved to the room next door. The blue cables down the row were poorly self made directly connecting servers to the single core switch, little to no labeling.

Network Racks After:
nwracksafter.jpg

Horizontal wiring is all CAT 6A as well as the patch cables. Dual 4506-E core switches.
Click to expand...


that is just sexy! i love those racks and cable conduits.
 
/usr/home said:
That's because Shaw is utter shit... at least around here. You'll NEVER get your speed.
Click to expand...

I'm somewhat happy with my 50/3 Shaw connection. I get my advertised speed between midnight and 5am and then some on occasion. It just depends on how saturated the node is that your connected too. I live at the edge of town in NE Calgary.
 
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avey said:
I
Network Racks After:
nwracksafter.jpg

Horizontal wiring is all CAT 6A as well as the patch cables. Dual 4506-E core switches.
Click to expand...

You can actually see that you guys are Shoretel customers. And a nice cleanup I have to say
 
Jay_oasis said:
http://www.comtest.com/tutorials/layer4.html
Click to expand...

Horribly generic doc. That's a pretty niche feature, you're talking about server load balancing. The only Cisco switch I know of that does this would be the 6500. The switches in the pictures are 4500s.

Either way though, just assume that any L3 switch you know if is also an L4 switch. This doesn't mean they will all support the features from your link though. You can't lump everything into one category.
 
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