Hi everyone

I thought I would share my newly build homeLAB setup with you. I use this environment for testing various VMware software and other tidbits.

Let look at the hardware configuration for now:

3x HP ML110 G5 Servers ea:

• HP Motherboard
• 8GB Ram
• Intel E7500 @ 2.93GHz CPU
• No Hdd’s
• An Additional 1GB NIC

The above servers was the start of my lab….but as you can see very limited in Memory. They now form my vCloud Director 1.5 Provider vDC compute power!

2x Gigabyte Based Desktops

• Gigabyte B75M-D3H Motherboard
• 32GB Ram
• Intel Core i5 3570K @ 3.4 GHz CPU (Socket LGA 1155)
• 1x 240GB SSD Hdd (Sandisk Extreme SSD)
• 2x 250GB SATA Hdd (Seagate 7200rpm)
• 2x 1GB NIC

The above are each hosting a vCenter 5.1 server with loads of VMware software I am testing and working with.

2x Gigabyte Based Desktops

• Gigabyte B75M-D3H Motherboard
• 16GB Ram
• Intel i3 2120 CPU @ 3.3GHz
• No Hdd
• 2x 1GB NIC

The above are each secondary servers to the servers above them…IE: two Datacenters, One Cluster, two Hosts.

1x Gigabyte Based Desktop

• MSI G31TM-21 Motherboard
• 2GB Ram
• Intel Core CPU E2160 (Socket LGA775)

The above is my Domain Controller, DNS, DHCP, TFTP, Some Management tools etc.

1x Gigabyte based Desktop

• Gigabyte B75M-D3H
• 8GB Ram
• Intel Core i5 3570K @ 3.4 GHz CPU (Socket LGA 1155)
• 2x 250GB SATA Hdd (Seagate 7200rpm)
• 3x 1.5GB SATA Hdd (Seagate 7200rpm)
• 1x Additional 1GB NIC
• nVidia 460 GTx GPU 2GB Ram

The above is my home filestore….It also doubles as my home PC if I want to rip some movies/music, play some games etc.

I have an iSCSI multipath setup using Starwind as my iSCSI provider etc.

Most of the boxes are empty…only MB, Ram and CPU so heat is not that big an issue. I like the setup as the noise level is low….and I can deal with the minimal heat with an Air conditioner in the room.

I am currently testing or working with the following:

• VMware vSphere 5.1
• vCloud Director 1.5
• vCloud Director 5.1
• vCAC 5.2
• VMware Log Insight
• VIN 2
• vCOPS 5.7
• SRM 5.1
• vSphere Replication 5.1
• VDR 5.1
• Chargeback 2.0
• HyperV (virtualized – for testing with vCAC only)
• UCS Manager 2 (Emulator – for testing with vCAC only)
• vCloud Connector 2.0

I am looking at View 5.1 in the near future. I am also looking at upgrading two hosts (currently with 16GB Ram) with additional 16GB Ram to take them to 32GB.

I am also looking at creating another PC for my use and reserve the homestor server(PC) for fileserving only. 

Then I am also looking forward to vSAN (or something) and maybe PernixData (once they go GA)!

So there you have it.

I shall expand on the networking in the next block and also on some of the software I use.

PS: All management is done via my trusty Dell e6320 Laptop and an additional LG 23″ LCD monitor…..because you NEED a big screen for vCOPS!!