Post your network with discussion!

xphil3 said:
CCIE it is.

If you guys really want a setup like this, I would say stay away from real routers. Honestly, they're a hassle to work with when you're studying. Go get yourself a good box(or if you already have one) load up dynamips and create some networks. I can supply you guys with some pretty decent .net files as well. Then go grab yourself 4 multilayer switch(I know, easier said than done :p) and 3 - 4 port NIC cards... You have your CCIE overlay topology built.

Perhpas we should start a thread on dynamips topologies, or network type challenges. That might be pretty cool.

slowbiz - No idea how much it weighs but it is fairly heavy, no need to worry about support when your on the ground level :D.
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I'd estimate at least 500-1200 pounds.
 
xphil3 said:
Perhpas we should start a thread on dynamips topologies, or network type challenges. That might be pretty cool.
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That'd would be awesome. I'd like to see some topologies, and then some mockup labs with a problem. Kinda of like a thread for CCNA/CCNP/CCIE study tips and just for fun. :)

I'd enjoy it and love to work on a lot of the problems to learn more! :)
 
xphil3 said:
Anyone got any big home network? Lots of network gear and or servers(virtual as well)? haven't seen much of this around here in a very long time.
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Here's my home network layout. I don't know if it qualifies as big, but I don't know too many people with a fiber channel HA SAN in their house. :D

Network.png


The left side is my "production" side that the family uses, the right side is my lab.

Desk pic:
desk.jpg


Here's a close up pic of my lab:
rack.jpg
 
agrikk said:
Here's my home network layout. I don't know if it qualifies as big, but I don't know too many people with a fiber channel HA SAN in their house. :D
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What SAN? :confused: .... Looks like your storage is all DAS, just fiber to the HBA?. I don't see fabric switches? Are they hiding somewhere:confused:... Like your setup, its a nice start Indeed. How much storage do you have on that array?
 
xphil3 said:
What SAN? :confused: .... Looks like your storage is all DAS, just fiber to the HBA?. I don't see fabric switches? Are they hiding somewhere:confused:... Like your setup, its a nice start Indeed. How much storage do you have on that array?
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The Compaq MSA1000 has integrated switches in th back of the unit. What you can't see is that on the back of the grey box there are two modular 6-port units giving the unit fully redundant connections.

A side shot:
side_sm.jpg


You can kinda see at the top of the bottom-most device there are multiple fiber connections. These are all connected into switch 1, and there's a similar setup on switch2 on the other side.

There are 14 147GB SCSI drives in the array, giving just over 2TB of raw storage. Plenty of room to stream my pr0n. :D
 
Not quite sure how that SAN controller works, is it FC SAN or iSCSI over Fiber?

If it's iSCSI, what target software are you using?

edit: nm saw it was an FC SAN. How exactly does it differ from iSCSI? Does it use the same concept of target/initiator software, or something completely different?
 
McDeth said:
Not quite sure how that SAN controller works, is it FC SAN or iSCSI over Fiber?

If it's iSCSI, what target software are you using?

edit: nm saw it was an FC SAN. How exactly does it differ from iSCSI? Does it use the same concept of target/initiator software, or something completely different?
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Depends on what kind of FC topology. Basically there was FC-AL (think token ring networks) and FC-Switched (more like a switched star network)

Now there is FCoE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCoE Which is iscsi using FC.
 
Thought I'd share these here. 2 Intel dual-port 10GbE CX4 NIC's. I'm upgrading my SAN and ESXi box here at home.


10gbehu2.jpg
 
Wow, the CX4 cables look like they cost more then a good GigE NC alone.
 
Yea, they're on the expensive side. I've got 2 1m CX4 cables to use for now but I'm looking into picking up 4 3m cables soon. It'll be around $400 for the cables which is a lot but really isn't all that bad when you add the price of everything else up.
 
LittleMe said:
Yea, they're on the expensive side. I've got 2 1m CX4 cables to use for now but I'm looking into picking up 4 3m cables soon. It'll be around $400 for the cables which is a lot but really isn't all that bad when you add the price of everything else up.
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cool for the ePenis.. but a horrid waste of money. Not to be a downer, you will never see anything close to those speeds with the limitation of the drives today. Again, cool for bragging :eek:
 
xphil3 said:
cool for the ePenis.. but a horrid waste of money. Not to be a downer, you will never see anything close to those speeds with the limitation of the drives today. Again, cool for bragging :eek:
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That's why it's connected to this.

hdtachxh0.jpg
 
LittleMe said:
That's why it's connected to this.
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Impressive indeed, but you would still need something capable of 2.5GB/sec to fully utilize those cards. The way I see it, is you yourself are never going to take advantage of those.. theres no question about it, so I would probably have spent my money elsewere unless you got those cards at a steal. 4Gbit iSCSI is more than enough for someone, even if you're transfering DVDs across your fabric daily.

think about it, most enterprise SANS are still only utilizing 4Gb HBA's. Definitely cool stuff, but I think idd rather blow the extra 3 or so grand on something more worth while... thats just me. :p
 
I'm not saying it isn't over-kill. But isn't that what we're all about here? Don't you have a house full over stuff that's over-kill?

And I did get them at a steal ;)
 
LittleMe said:
I'm not saying it isn't over-kill. But isn't that what we're all about here? Don't you have a house full over stuff that's over-kill?

And I did get them at a steal ;)
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Bwhahahahhaaha, well played sir, well played. Indeed I do have a ton of crap but I didn't have to pay for most of it. :D . I
 
I'm not saying how much I paid for what I have, but it's fair to say I didn't pay for most of it as well. Finding a job that takes care of their people is the best thing in the world.
 
If I had $3000 i wouldn't of been dremeled some old 4u case to accept some non hotswap SCSI hdds earlier today. Id already have my planned SATA array... but thats still a dream.
 
OmegaAvenger said:
If I had $3000 i wouldn't of been dremeled some old 4u case to accept some non hotswap SCSI hdds earlier today. Id already have my planned SATA array... but thats still a dream.
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hah hah hah. I've had to do that.

Something like this:

pl_drives_left.jpg


pl_drives_closeup.jpg


How to jam a bunch of SCSI drives into a medium tower case.
 
agrikk said:
hah hah hah. I've had to do that.

Something like this:

How to jam a bunch of SCSI drives into a medium tower case.
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I actually just did it two hours ago. :p
I redid my rack and moved an athlon xp machine into it. Now I'm going through my hard drives and finding which ones are still working. the 60gb IDE i have might be dieing. If it is I'll buy an 80gb to keep it going for another year or so. The parts it has are hardly worth the effort of selling, so they get a new lease on life till I can save up some $$$

Pics:
HPIM1770.jpg

HPIM1769.jpg

HPIM1768.jpg

HPIM1766.jpg


I'm still fussing over it at work.
 
I've used those SCSI hot-swap to non-hot swap converter things before. Some have been rock solid, others flame out inexplicably in a shower of sparks.

Hopefully you're not running anything mission critical on them.

Also, I too tend to spend a lot of tiny bits of cash to keep older hardware working. Another 2 gigs of RAM? perhaps a cheap processor upgrade? Maybe buy that AGP video card on ebay? :D
 
My hopes are that I will get some gift cards or cash for christmas then I can buy another HDD and take the data off the server I just posted. It'll stay around until then. I have some anime on it but thats It. The only other use for it is really the serial cards you see in it. I use it over RDP to use putty to access my switch and routers.
 


Here is my network, finally put it into Visio. It is a lot of equipment for my apartment, :)

I am thinking of getting two Infiniband cards for the VMWare server and the File Server for iSCSI directly. Right now I just use Samba file sharing.
 
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