My Home VMWare setup

My Home VMWare setup
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GREMBLING22 @ 13th Sep 09:43AM:
My Home VMWare setup

Here is the custom box built specifically for vmware server. We started off using a 12U dual proc. PIII setup and then finally built the server we have now.
From top to bottom

2 APC Network controllable PDU's
2 3com 24 port 10/100 managed switches one with gigabit module installed.
Avocent 8 port IP KVM

My Custom Server:
Dual Proc, Dual core, socket 1207 @ 2ghz
4GB ECC RAM
Compaq U160 4 channel scsi raid w/128 battery backed up ram
Channel 0 (3) 18GB 10,000rpm raid 5 array (ESX)
Channel 1 (3) 36GB 15,000rpm raid 5 (Virtual Machines)
Channel 2 (5) 36GB 15,000rpm raid 5 with ADG

This server is used as my incoming firewall that utilizes dual wan, IPS and IDS via SNORT, my friends webserver, 3 game servers, my mail server, the virtual infrastructure 3 license server, and a few test servers.

Currently being shipped or waiting to be put in:
*HP Smart Array 6400 U320 Dual channel scsi 256DDR
*(6) 36GB 15K U320 for 2 raid 5 channels
1500VA 950watt 2U rackmount UPS
*Cisco 2400 series 24 port 10/100 port managed switch with 2 gigabit fiber ports
*Netgear 16port gigabit managed switch with 2 gigabit fiber ports (will be used to create 2 gigabit fiber trunks or aggregated links to the cisco switch.

luminaire @ 13th Sep 10:17AM:
Re: My Home VMWare setup

Nice setup, but I still get paranoid putting any router/firewall in VMs. I like having dedicated, normally redundant physical devices to do that job, but maybe I'm just being old fashion.
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Luminaire
My Blog
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GREMBLING22 @ 13th Sep 11:57AM:
Re: My Home VMWare setup

I was actually the same way until i tested it as a vm and got speeds faster then the desktop i was using.
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luma @ 13th Sep 12:18PM:
Re: My Home VMWare setup

How can you justify the cost of ESX licenses for small office/home use?

nice setup though.

Luma
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GREMBLING22 @ 13th Sep 12:50PM:
Re: My Home VMWare setup

Because it was paid for by my company :)and was a require requirement on my salary / negotiations for my current position. Im going to school for network administration and I do a lot of testing. I will soon be getting a bunch of cisco equipment to prepare myself for the cert.
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fcisler @ 13th Sep 03:32PM:
Re: My Home VMWare setup

I still don't get why people do RAID 5 on 3 disks?

The performance is absolutely HORRIBLE! If you only have 3 disks, do a mirror with a hot spare.

Otherwise, nice setup!
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JJV @ 14th Sep 01:03AM:
Re: My Home VMWare setup

Wow! That room looks like something out of a horror movie.

Nice setup though.
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IhatemyISP @ 15th Sep 01:49AM:
Re: My Home VMWare setup

Not a bad setup, but man, you are braving having that rack so close to that window.
--
Machinists Mates
"We screw, nut, and bolt"
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watts3000 @ 15th Sep 02:10AM:
Re: My Home VMWare setup

Nice setup how are you doing your vmotion and HA testing? I'm assuming you most likely have a iscsi setup going with openfiler or a linux box that can do isci. I tested on openfiler I did not like it because it would give all luns the same ID I got tired of going into the config and changing the lun number. I'm going to build a centos box soon with LVM raid and ISCI. Right now I run dell poweredge 4 way boxes and 2950's with local storage for our ESX stuff local storage sucks but I plan to move to the san next year.
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Tikker_LoS @ 15th Sep 11:49PM:
Re: My Home VMWare setup

said by JJV :

Wow! That room looks like something out of a horror movie.

that's what I was thinking
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GREMBLING22 @ 16th Sep 02:56AM:
Re: My Home VMWare setup

I have not had the time or the hardware to start testing vmotion, although I would love to. For such a small setup though I believe VMotion is not needed. I have been thinking of running something like freenas and making a 4 gigabit trunk from the switch to the server.

I know im probably going to catch shit for this but I would like to throw 4-6 sata drives into my vmware server not for virtual machines but for file storage. While this is not supported by VMWare there have been cases where this has worked using the right sata controller.
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GREMBLING22 @ 16th Sep 06:48PM:
Re: My Home VMWare setup

few pics of my server

watts3000 @ 20th Sep 01:50AM:
Re: My Home VMWare setup

I would just build one main file server running centos setup LVM than I would do NFS and iscsi. I actullay have a centos box set up at work running nfs I use it to hold all my ISO and to off load vmdk files to. The nfs server was easy to setup believe me I'm a linux beginner it toook about 45 minutes to configure. I forgot to ask how do you guys run esx severs at work san or ISCSI?
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