Some “blogging” colleagues posted their home lab configuration on the internet, see the list below:

    I also give it a try and post my test lab on my blog.

I own 3 physical machines that I moved a few months ago to the datacenter at my work in Soest (the Netherlands). With a VPN tunnel from my Cisco ASA 5505 (at home) to the datacenter, my 50/50 mbit ISP, it feels like the systems are near me 🙂

 

Server: 1 – ESX4.0 Update 1a

Server: HP ProLiant DL585 G1
CPU TYPE : Quad (4) AMD Opteron 64-880 Dual Core
CPU Speed: 8 x 2,4 Ghz
Memory: 8 GB DDR PC2100
Storage: 4 x 300 GB
2 x HP NC7170 Dual Port PCI-X Gigabit Adapter

VM’s:

Win2008R2 – PDC – DNS – DHCP – IAS
Win2008R2 – SDC, File, Print
Win2008R2 – SQL 2005
Win2008R2 – Microsoft Exchange 2010
Win2008R2 – XenApp 5.0
Win2008R2 – XenApp 5.0
Win2003R2 – vCenter 4.0 Cluster d.m.v. MSCS Node1 (test)
Win2003R2 – vCenter 4.0 Cluster d.m.v. MSCS Node2 (test)
Win2003R2 (32 bit) – McAfee EPO 4.5
Win2003R2 (32 bit) – ISA 2006
Windows 7 (64 bit) – MS Office 2007 – MSN – IRC – VIC
Windows Vista (64 bit) – Test
Appliance: Google Chrome OS – Test
Appliance: m0n0wall – test

 

Server: 2 – ESX4.0 Update 1a

Server: HP ProLiant DL380 G4
CPU TYPE : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU
CPU Speed: 2 x 3.60 Ghz
Memory: 4 GB
Storage: 527 GB
2x Broadcom Corporation NC7782 Gigabit Server Adapter

VM’s:

Win2003R2 (32 bit) – Windows Terminal server (T.b.v standbydienst / work)
Win2003R2 (32 bit) – Windows Terminal server (T.b.v standbydienst / work)
Win2003R2 (32 bit) – Windows Terminal server (T.b.v standbydienst / work)
Win2003R2 (32 bit) – Windows Terminal server (T.b.v standbydienst / work)
Win2008R2 – File server to share .iso files (MS VLK/HP/Citrix installation files etc).

Server: 3 – vCenter 4.0

Server: HP ProLiant ML350 G4
CPU Speed: Intel Xeon 3.0 GHz
Memory: 2 GB
Storage: 4x 72 GB
1x NC7761 PCI Gigabit NIC

Win2003R2 – vCenter 4.0 (BackupExec 12d, Veeam Monitor, VMware Update Manager, VMware Data Recovery, and local SQL2005 for independency)

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5 thoughts on “VMpros: My Homelab

  1. Great piece of hardware you have for the lab. What are you using for central storage, if anything?

    I am almost done building my home virtualization lab (http://www.virtualizationtalk.net/58-building-home-virtualization-lab-on-a-budget/) and thought about running vCenter in dedicated server but decided it would not be any different plus the added electricity usage and heat from the server would be too painful to deal with!

    Thanks

  2. @Virtualization Talk

    THNX! I’m using only local (10/15K SCSI) storage, it’s too expensive to buy a good performing NAS/SAN for my testlab. Maybe in the future I’ll look for central storage..

    For my ESXi homelab/pc (https://blog.vmpros.nl/2010/02/11/vmware-tweaking-my-esxi-whitebox-memory-asus-p6t-se-ocz-gold-pc3/) I’m using the Samsung SpinPoint F1 2x 1 TB and OCZ Agility 60 GB SSD. But again… local storage 🙂

    Nice blogepost you made!

  3. Ariel Antigua :

    How noisy is that DL585 ?

    I’m planing to get one of those from a friend and add it to my current homelab, the only concerns are about the FAN noise..

    Too noisy! There are 8 hot swappable fans but I’ll recommend you don’t buy this server for a homelab. Better you can take a look at the ML150 series or ML350/DL380 G6/G7 with power and fan controll.

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