Homelab setup
Homelab - the toys!
After a few years working with different companies and their various testing/training/development environments, I've always wanted a bit more control over the kit and longed to have my own 'proper' setup at home.
So over the past few months i've built a new homelab. I wanted to have some storage and a UPS so decided I'd make space for a rack.
After a few weeks/months of trawling ebay and other sites for various parts I've ended up with:
2 x DL380 G7s with 128GB ram and local storage
1x P2000 storage array with drives (shared cluster storage)
1x D2600 storage array with drives (I ordered the wrong drives for the P2000 and rather than return them, I found another enclosure)
3 x Cisco 2811 routers
2 x Cisco 3560 POE switches
1 x Cisco 3750G switch
1x APC220R
and all manner of drives, cables, power strips, expansion cards and server memory. Not to mention a 36U rack to fit it all into.
The end result is a small private cloud, where I can spin up some servers (current count 40 and its beginning to slow down).
unlike a production system, its being started-up and shutdown several times a week as it runs too hot to leave on 24/7. Thats fine during the winter but during the summer
Noise is also an issue, strangely enough from the switches and not the storage/servers.
The hosts run Windows Server 2016 and share the P2000 storage. VMM2016 manages the VMs.
Typical SME, multiple domain controllers, multiple exchange servers, enterprise Skype setup, System Center for monitoring, patching and management.
Working with the excellent script from Aaron Guilmette (https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/undocumentedfeatures/2018/04/25/create-realistic-lab-users/) I have 250,000 users with mailboxes.
I'll be making a few tweaks to the script (its making the lab work hard!) to streamline and speed things up. I'll also be adding in functionality to enable users for Skype for Business.
One future task would be, just for kicks, to tie it in with an office365 tenancy to check on replication/synchronisation times.
So, whats it going to be used for? Mainly learning, with some development/testing of scripts. It will be somewhere where things will get broken (intentionally and by accident!) and will be fixed.
I wont be taking a sledgehammer to the devices (well maybe a virtual one!).
I built, destroyed and rebuilt more Active Directory environments that I care to remember. Nothing will change!
After a few years working with different companies and their various testing/training/development environments, I've always wanted a bit more control over the kit and longed to have my own 'proper' setup at home.
So over the past few months i've built a new homelab. I wanted to have some storage and a UPS so decided I'd make space for a rack.
After a few weeks/months of trawling ebay and other sites for various parts I've ended up with:
2 x DL380 G7s with 128GB ram and local storage
1x P2000 storage array with drives (shared cluster storage)
1x D2600 storage array with drives (I ordered the wrong drives for the P2000 and rather than return them, I found another enclosure)
3 x Cisco 2811 routers
2 x Cisco 3560 POE switches
1 x Cisco 3750G switch
1x APC220R
and all manner of drives, cables, power strips, expansion cards and server memory. Not to mention a 36U rack to fit it all into.
The end result is a small private cloud, where I can spin up some servers (current count 40 and its beginning to slow down).
unlike a production system, its being started-up and shutdown several times a week as it runs too hot to leave on 24/7. Thats fine during the winter but during the summer
Noise is also an issue, strangely enough from the switches and not the storage/servers.
The hosts run Windows Server 2016 and share the P2000 storage. VMM2016 manages the VMs.
Typical SME, multiple domain controllers, multiple exchange servers, enterprise Skype setup, System Center for monitoring, patching and management.
Working with the excellent script from Aaron Guilmette (https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/undocumentedfeatures/2018/04/25/create-realistic-lab-users/) I have 250,000 users with mailboxes.
I'll be making a few tweaks to the script (its making the lab work hard!) to streamline and speed things up. I'll also be adding in functionality to enable users for Skype for Business.
One future task would be, just for kicks, to tie it in with an office365 tenancy to check on replication/synchronisation times.
So, whats it going to be used for? Mainly learning, with some development/testing of scripts. It will be somewhere where things will get broken (intentionally and by accident!) and will be fixed.
I wont be taking a sledgehammer to the devices (well maybe a virtual one!).
I built, destroyed and rebuilt more Active Directory environments that I care to remember. Nothing will change!
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