What are the latest home lab builds?

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AMD_Gamer

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I have not been following the home lab scene for a while now. What is the latest and greatest home lab server builds for VMware? Will my older X8SIL-F with Xeon 3440 CPU's still be good? I am not sure they can do ESXi 6.

Is there a new version of the Dell C6100 4 node server that everything is raving about?
 
Your current setup should be fine. That's only if you're not already over using it or over running it. There is no new 4 node set up that I'm aware of. The latest and greatest is all relative. Is there a need for you to upgrade?
 
peanuthead said:
Your current setup should be fine. That's only if you're not already over using it or over running it. There is no new 4 node set up that I'm aware of. The latest and greatest is all relative. Is there a need for you to upgrade?
Click to expand...

I just have not run my lab for almost 2 years. I actually have two of the same build (2X X8SIL-F with Xeon 3440 CPU's and 16GB ram) so I can do vMotion and everything else. I also have another server that I used for FreeeNAS for NFS/iSCSI. I was just wondering if there is anything new I should look at. I also want to finally try out VIRL and have been reading that it is a resource hog so I may need to get more ram.
 
I have the same boards and processors.. Currently still on 5.5 but I've had no issues... Still a solid setup IMHO
 
BUT....if you wanted to upgrade you really can't beat the deals on the 2670's. They can be had for $60 on eBay. Boards are a little challenging however considering how cheap memory is and the deals over on servethehome.com you can build yourself a solid cluster for under $1k.

As others have said, however, only if you need it. Heck, I still run 3 x Dual Intel Westmere systems and a single Haswell Xeon All-in-one and they all work great...but not great on Heat, power and noise. Will be moving to Xeon-D by end of year.
 
You can upgrade ran pretty easily. It sound like you need to sit down and write out what exactly you want to do then from there you can determine how much RAM you may need for all machines that you have running at one time. Remember you can shut down that you don't need or are not using. Now if you want them all on then that's a different story.
 
You can just drop 32 in.. I have 32 on all my hosts no issues

Check documentation for supported confirm.. If I remember there was some differences between just ecc and reg ecc.
 
Hello Friends,

I'm planning to go after VMWARE NSX and intended to build the home lab where i can learn NSX technologies. On some of the blogs I found below requirement for NSX lab system

management-vm-sizing1.jpg



I'm thinking of building lab with Intel Core i7-5820K and X99 supported motherboard with 48GB RAM. Please share your opinion on this. will this system is enough to run above setup?

Thanks,
Deepak
 
Hi,

Sad to see no responses to my query. after some research i found below componants for building lab for VMWARE NSX...
processor-
1x Intel Xeon E5-2609 v3 Six Core Haswell Processor (LGA2011-v3 Socket, 1.9GHz, 6 Cores ,15MB Cache) w/o Fan, Retail Box for Intel S2600 Chipset Server Board

MOBO-
Asrock X99 WS LGA2011 v3 Socket DDR4 MotherBoard (LGA2011v3, DDR4 3200+(OC) upto 128GB, ATX Board) for CoreTM i7 and Xeon® E5-1600/2600 v3 Series

RAM- 48/64GB DDR$ ECC RAM

please let me know if you have any inputes..

Thanks in advance
 
Well your question is pretty vague. Is NSX the only reason for the lab build? How much life do you want to get out of it? What is your budget? What other VMs might you run? Do you have any pre-existing hardware you want to use?
 
Hi,

glad to have your response.... right now yes NSX is the thing on my mind and might run sevaral other VM's that are required for VCP cert. i will be using it for lab purpose only no production cause still expect good lifetime for hardware. also i will be using it for my Cisco security lab simulations. although i have tight budget but still looking for hardware which should sufficiently carry out all the labs task for VMWare and Cisco certification.

Im having AMD quad core phenom 2.2ghz procesor with me with 8gb ram that i'll also utilize if any way possible.
 
Last edited:
dkmahajan said:
Hello Friends,

I'm planning to go after VMWARE NSX and intended to build the home lab where i can learn NSX technologies.
Click to expand...


If you plan to do any real "serious" NSX testing and learning you are going to need more than one system.
NSX consists of Load balancers, security policies, VXLans, Distributed Routing, and a host based Virtual Firewall for micro segmentation. If you want to learn about the distributed firewall and micro segmentation then you can use a single host but you wont see the "awesomeness" where you can move a VM around (to another vcenter) and see the firewall rules follow. If you want to mess with VXLan then you will need more hardware so you can play with the Distributed Router and watch packets flow between two different VXLan segments.

Or, if you are really good, you can Paravirtualize everything on stop of that single box. Make a few Virtual ESXi Hosts, and sub virtualize under those.

** as Peanuthead said -- what do you want to do/get out of this "NSX" focused hardware?

I do not see any comments about your "Disk" plan but if you want to complete any testing in the 2016 year, make sure you have at the very least one SSD. Getting a cheap PCIe SSD or Sata/SAS SSD is a must have if you plan to run anything outside of a single VM.
Good luck and have fun!

Nick
@vmnick0
Pcli.me
 
Hi Nick,

Thanks for your informative reply. I'm really new to NSX domain and want to get in to know it in this year. As you stated i would really like to explore all the features of NSX. i already thought that i would need more than one system.

But still if you could please suggest me if i can do all the NSX in single box may be by barebone installation of ESXi and then as you suggested paravirtualization rest of the stuff on top of it. will it work? and what kind of hardware i would need? simultaneously i will utilize my current system, to help it.

if i opt for multiple systems what kind of spec i should look for?

I'm sorry im asking all the stuff to you guys bucause i dont have much of exposure to VMWare and not sure what hardware will suffice my study.

Thanks again.
 
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