James Kane Problems And Success In Creating A Frugal Home Lab
1. Inexpensive Home Lab
James Kane
Mark Minasi Forum Meeting April 2009 Support Consultant - Strategic Thought Group
2. Introduction
Creating an inexpensive home lab
About myself
Requirements
Challenge
My research
The server build
Advantages
Risks
Insights
3. About Myself
James Kane
I post on the Minasi forum as username chamezzzz
Member of the forum since 2002
Work for the Strategic Thought Group
Where I provide Technical Support and Administration
4. Requirements
Inexpensive
– We are in a global recession
Scalable
– The hardware can be expanded
Robust
– Build a variety of environments
Replication
– Especially problems encountered at my work place
5. Challenge
I wanted to use VMware ESXi
As I use this extensively in my workplace, however......
Supported hardware is expensive
6. My Research
Performed my research Google searches
Found the following website, which is the inspiration for this presentation
http://www.techhead.co.uk
Run by a New Zealander named Simon Seagrave
Who is based in London
He is also a VMware vExpert & VMware Certified Professional
7. Server Build
Hardware
– HP Proliant ML115 Server
– AMD 2.1GHz Opteron Quad Core
– 1 x 1Gb NIC £150
– 8GB Kingston Memory (4 x 2GB) £135
– 2GB USB Memory Stick £5
Software
– VMware ESXi Server £0
– WinRAR £21
– DD for Windows £0
Total Expenditure £311
8. Server Build
Process
– Download VMWare ESXi iso image
– Extract the Hypervisor using WinRAR
– Write the Hypervisor to the USB drive using DD for
Windows
9. Advantages
Scalable
- add Network Cards, Layer 2 Switch and iSCSI storage
Cost
- advantages of Enterprise Virtualization at reduced cost
Flexible
- not constrained by 8GB Memory
14. Risks
Support
– HP Proliant ML115 hardware is not supported by VMware
Redundancy
– There is none in my presented setup and all of my eggs are in one basket
RAID
– ML115 cannot use the onboard RAID to RAID more than 2 disks.
– For disk redundancy a VMware ESXi supported controller such as the HP e200 controller
is required (supports RAID 0,1 and 5) with SATA disks.
15. Insights
BIOS Settings
– Set boot device to USB
– Ensure to enable ‘Secure Virtual Machine Mode’
Direct Disk extraction requires attention
HP Insight Agents will not work on this server (they only work on the HP
Proliant 300 series of servers and higher)