Though I wasn’t able to attend, the recent VMTN podcast was about the home lab setup. This is an important topic for many people new to virtualization to gain experience as well as people that are advanced in the technology.
There are a number of different ways to go about provisioning a home lab. Here are a few links to what other virtualization personalities are doing:
- Duncan Epping’s home lab (Yellow-Bricks)
- Chad Sakac’s home lab (Virtual Geek)
- Gabrie van Zanten’s home lab (Gabe’s Virtual World)
- Simon Seagrave’s home lab (TechHead.Co.Uk)
- Jason Boche’s lab (Virtualization Evangelist)
- David Davis’ lab (VMware Videos)
Since I finally got moving on the topic, I thought I’d share my lab configuration as well. There are two key technologies for my configuration: ESXi and DroboPro. Here is my lab layout:
Ironically, it isn’t that complicated as the diagram may seem. The most complicated piece is the Untangle gateway that serves as my firewall, internal DNS, DHCP, web content filter, and other network services. The Untangle appliance is on three networks, one of which (vmnic3) doesn’t exist as a physical media.
It looks like this (minus much of the wiring!):
My less than fancy camera couldn’t squeeze it all in, but under the printer is my $300 desktop and beneath that is the ProLiant ML350 server (the little red light is a USB key that is running ESXi). On the desk from left to right is the DroboPro, PC speaker subwoofer, fireproof USB drive and standard USB drive. On the desk is the KVM and console to all physical systems. For my VMware testing, I use the ESX/ESXi as a virtual machine option extensively. Next year, I plan to buy two inexpensive servers to put on the RWVDEV.INTRA network than can give me a little more flexibility for installing things like Hyper-V clusters.
I hope this gives a good picture to what I’m doing in my lab. If you want to get started with a lab for Windows stuff, virtualization stuff or whatever and need advice, send me a note!
Rickatron Blog 
Posted by Tweets that mention My Home Lab Setup « Rick Vanover's Blog -- Topsy.com on January 21, 2010 at 2:14 am
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Posted by My Home Lab Setup « Rick Vanover's Blog | VirtualizationDir - Top Virtualization Providers, News and Resources on January 21, 2010 at 5:28 pm
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Posted by White boxes and home labs – Community Podcast #79 | VMvisor on January 22, 2010 at 5:35 am
[…] Rick Vanover – My Home Lab Setup […]
Posted by VMTN Podcast 80 » Yellow Bricks on January 27, 2010 at 4:55 pm
[…] My homelab – Drobo […]
Posted by vesaPill on January 29, 2010 at 4:08 pm
You realize subwoofers work on the premise of vibration, and that the biggest threat to hard drives is… vibration. Right?
Posted by rickvanover on January 29, 2010 at 5:35 pm
Yes, I know of the vibration risk. But, consider that I only drop beats in the lab probably once a month to make any substantive activity from the subwoofer. It is usually powered off and only the flat panels are in regular operation.
Posted by Rack Your Home Lab With $8 IKEA Lack Tables | VM /ETC on January 31, 2010 at 12:28 pm
[…] Most of my colleagues have a home lab with at least some equipment that is rackable, but because of expense, room size, or the decor concerns of a much smarter significant other purchasing a data center rack is not possible (or advisable). In fact, our servers, storage and switches are stacked under a desk, piled in a corner, or hidden in a coat closet. Virtualization and server consolidation has helped reduce the total amount of hardware we need running at home, but we still end up with a makeshift and cluttered workspace that keeps us in the dog house. […]
Posted by David Davis on March 5, 2010 at 9:39 am
Cool setup Rick! Thanks for sharing!
And, by the way, I love that whiteboard diagram – too funny.
-David
Posted by VMware ESX(i) Home Lab – Why, What and How? Considerations when building your own home lab. | TechHead.co.uk on March 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm
[…] My Home Lab Setup (Rick Vanover) […]
Posted by Virtualization on June 7, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Rick,
Nice little setup you’ve got there. I am not big fan of the drobo, how is it doing for you?
I’ve managed to setup something at home for vmware:
http://www.virtualization.net/58-building-home-virtualization-lab-on-a-budget/
I did buy N7700PRO for storage, good device so far.
Posted by rickvanover on June 7, 2010 at 8:48 pm
It is “OK” Sure, I’d like it faster, but for the price point I’ve found that almost all of the products are in the same category as performance goes. The adaptive RAID technology (BeyondRAID) that Drobo uses fits my need best, however.
Posted by Retrieve the computer account of RDP sessions | Servers and Storage | TechRepublic.com on June 7, 2010 at 9:28 pm
[…] admit it: My personal lab was hacked. At the time, I had the remote desktop protocol (RDP) as my interim remote access […]
Posted by Bali on September 17, 2010 at 11:32 pm
hey bro. i like your setup , i am also planning to setup a virtual lab and i am not sure where to start. to begin with i bought an PC with i7 quad. processor and 16 gig of ram. but it does not have a iSCSI and the mother board does not support it either. i can buy and extra NIC for Gig support. please let me know what i need to do from here. also i dono about the licensing, will i be able to use Virtual center to do Vmotion and stuf on a ELU license ?
Posted by rickvanover on September 18, 2010 at 7:24 am
@Bali: You can use evaluation licenses, but they are time-limited for all the good functionality.
Posted by Preview: ioSafe SoloPRO « Rickatron Blog on September 30, 2010 at 5:45 pm
[…] for more on this cool new product, as I’ll set it up in the Rickatron Lab this […]
Posted by How to use the vSphere datastore map | Servers and Storage | TechRepublic.com on October 7, 2010 at 7:30 pm
[…] my personal lab, I have a small iSCSI SAN that provides my vSphere test environment. It is a single-path solution, […]
Posted by Group Policy Object filtering by security group | Servers and Storage | TechRepublic.com on October 8, 2010 at 11:01 pm
[…] my personal lab, I have two GPOs at the top of the domain that would execute for all objects in the domain but […]
Posted by Removing a read-only domain controller from a domain | Servers and Storage | TechRepublic.com on October 12, 2010 at 6:50 am
[…] is a great product, except that it doesn’t natively do housekeeping functions for you. In my personal lab, I noticed that I had an obsolete domain controller enumerated in the site (running at Windows […]
Posted by Removing a read-only domain controller from a domain | HD Techblog on October 13, 2010 at 9:27 pm
[…] is a great product, except that it doesn’t natively do housekeeping functions for you. In my home lab, I noticed that I had an obsolete domain controller enumerated in the site (running at Windows […]
Posted by PCI-scanning for external IP addresses with QualysGuard PCI | Network Administrator | TechRepublic.com on November 1, 2010 at 8:40 am
[…] There are a number of factors that go into getting a PCI scan for an Internet-facing IP address. The first is the requirement that they are performed by an external party that is an Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV). Recently, I gave the QualysGuard PCI service a test drive for performing a scan of a system in my personal lab. […]
Posted by PCI-Scanning for External IP Addresses with QualysGuard PCI « WTI NewsBlog on November 1, 2010 at 12:21 pm
[…] There are a number of factors that go into getting a PCI scan for an Internet-facing IP address. The first is the requirement that they are performed by an external party that is an Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV). Recently, I gave the QualysGuard PCI service a test drive for performing a scan of a system in my personal lab. […]
Posted by rickvanover on November 1, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Dear @ WTI NewsBlog: You have been copying a number of my posts. I’ve informed TechRepublic of this, and I’d appreciate you either not copy my posts or use fair-use guidelines.
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Posted by Check out Untangle 8.0's new Bandwidth Control feature | Network Administrator | TechRepublic.com on November 23, 2010 at 9:10 am
[…] have used Untangle for a few years for the Internet connectivity and network management for my personal lab. For that network, I provide DNS, DHCP, content filtering, and port and protocol management all for […]
Posted by VMware certification options and resources | Servers and Storage | TechRepublic.com on December 11, 2010 at 2:59 am
[…] virtualize itself post on VMware employee Eric Gray’s VCritical blog. I maintain a [Link: https://rickvanover.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/my-home-lab-setup/%5D personal lab, as my employer’s resources are not the best place for virtualization science […]
Posted by Hardware warranties: Get what you pay for or make an exception? | Network Administrator | TechRepublic.com on December 13, 2010 at 9:41 am
[…] a problem with a storage product. The issue was with a Drobo storage device. I use a DroboPro in my personal lab, so I’m quite familiar with the series of […]
Posted by Juan on February 10, 2011 at 5:10 pm
Hey Rick, nice setup you got goin’ there.
Two questions: Why ESXi and not MS Hyper-V? Is it the free ESXi version?
And – you got any pointers on how to “build” a “SAN?” I’ve looked at some of Dell’s, but they are way out of my league.
Thanks!
Posted by rickvanover on February 10, 2011 at 5:24 pm
Juan:
I did not use Hyper-V as that hypervisor doesn’t support nested virtualization. I need to get exposure with Hyper-V, but need additional compute capabilities to so such. Make sense?
Posted by Virtualization test lab tricks with SSDs | TechRepublic on February 16, 2011 at 2:57 pm
[…] my Rickatron virtualization test lab, I have a capable, mainstream physical server and small SAN; I also make extensive use of the […]
Posted by Join the vSphere Management Assistant to Active Directory | TechRepublic on February 28, 2011 at 10:42 pm
[…] command syntax is: sudo domainjoin-cli join domain user. In the case of the domain, I’m using my personal virtualization test lab’s RWVDEV.INTRA domain name, and the syntax and its success is shown in Figure C. Figure […]
Posted by Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 brings Microsoft antivirus engine to clients | TechRepublic on March 12, 2011 at 3:00 am
[…] for a free 120 day trial. I recently downloaded this antivirus protection for my Windows Servers in my personal virtualization test lab. It is important to have some antivirus solution for my lab server operating systems, as I am […]
Posted by Configure the iSCSI initiator in Windows Server Core or Hyper-V Server | TechRepublic on April 4, 2011 at 9:35 am
[…] the course of provisioning Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 in my home virtualization lab, I decided to leverage the Hyper-V Server standalone installation, which closely resembles Windows […]
Posted by Configure the iSCSI initiator in Windows Server Core or Hyper-V Server « Hazim Anzawi – Late Edition II on April 6, 2011 at 12:40 pm
[…] — Hazim Anzawi @ 9:39 pm In the course of provisioning Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 in my home virtualization lab, I decided to leverage the Hyper-V Server standalone installation, which closely resembles Windows […]
Posted by Gather VMware environment information with RVTools | TechRepublic on May 16, 2011 at 11:05 pm
[…] useful information about the vSphere environment. The vHealth tab was particularly helpful to my home lab because it identified files that were not mapped to an active virtual machine (Figure B). This is […]
Posted by Gather VMware environment information with RVTools | www.greenerliving.co.za on May 17, 2011 at 6:04 am
[…] useful information about the vSphere environment. The vHealth tab was particularly helpful to my home lab because it identified files that were not mapped to an active virtual machine (Figure B). This is […]
Posted by Configure server, desktop, and laptop power options with Group Policy | TechRepublic on May 31, 2011 at 1:14 pm
[…] the image to enlarge. The option shown is where I have configured for my Active Directory domain in my home lab to configure computers with a lid (such as laptops) to do nothing when the lid is closed. This is […]
Posted by Modifying the host memory usage alarm in vSphere | TechRepublic on June 10, 2011 at 12:51 pm
[…] run vSphere in my personal lab, and I am constantly pushing my memory configuration to the max. To try to keep up with this moving […]
Posted by vCenter XVP Manager and Converter connects Hyper-V hosts to vSphere Client | TechRepublic on June 27, 2011 at 4:50 pm
[…] plug-ins are installed, the Add Host wizard can be run within this area of the vSphere Client. In my personal lab, I added a Hyper-V Server to the vSphere Client. Once this is completed, a number of basic […]
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Posted by Tips on copying and backing up Group Policy Objects | TechRepublic on July 8, 2011 at 1:11 pm
[…] serves a number of purposes, but one that irritates me is nomenclature. Figure A is a screenshot of my personal lab, and I have not done a good job in naming the GPOs. Ideally, a GPO is self-documenting so that it […]
Posted by Practical tips on simplifying GPOs and OU organization | TechRepublic on July 19, 2011 at 3:18 pm
[…] These tips are general guidelines, and any of you keeping score will note that my screenshot from my personal lab is not exactly following all of these recommendations. It’s fine for a lab, but in […]
Posted by Why a TechNet subscription is worth the investment | TechRepublic on July 22, 2011 at 10:15 am
[…] successful as a Windows Server administrator is because I use a test environment. I maintain a small private test lab at home, where I make extensive use of virtual machines and evaluation software. Evaluation software is […]
Posted by Untangle 7.2 includes Internet portal functionality | TechRepublic on July 26, 2011 at 9:52 am
[…] delivers a lot of powerful features; including many available for free. I’ve used Untangle in my personal lab, and have been very pleased with the product. Version 7.2 of the Untangle appliance has been […]
Posted by Network-based storage options for robust home labs | TechRepublic on July 26, 2011 at 9:59 am
[…] Brad Bird hit home with me. Making a home lab is important, but it can really add up! I maintain a private lab at home where I do extensive testing with virtualization for various network and Windows Server […]
Posted by Configure BgInfo to run via a GPO for a consistent experience | TechRepublic on July 27, 2011 at 12:49 pm
[…] fields to show), and the timer set to zero will not display the configuration file. Note: This in my personal lab; a production environment may not want to use the directory netlogon share for this type of thing. […]
Posted by Don't waste time reclaiming space on thin provisioned VMs | TechRepublic on August 1, 2011 at 5:16 pm
[…] machine’s provisioned and used storage amounts are displayed. Figure A shows a file server in my personal lab displaying these allocations. Figure […]
Posted by Drobo Dashboard makes storage provisioning easy | TechRepublic on August 8, 2011 at 11:13 am
[…] you have followed all of my ramblings on Twitter and checked out my home lab, you may have noticed that I use a Data Robotics Drobo device for iSCSI storage. The Drobo series […]
Posted by VMware Compliance Checker for vSphere now available | TechRepublic on August 9, 2011 at 2:15 pm
[…] against that configuration. I’ve downloaded this tool, and I’m preparing to run it in my home lab environment, which includes three ESXi hosts and a vCenter Server. For the purpose of my home lab, I have not […]
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Posted by saif on May 30, 2013 at 12:13 pm
I am new to VM, I have background of EE with little networking but I loved VM and wanted to learn it. Since it is not possible to get a chance at my work, I am thinking to setup a small lab at home for vSphere, ESXi 5.x, Windows server and some SAN peripherals to implement some kind of storage with FCoE and iSCSI. I have very limited budget and no on hand experience of either SAN or VM. Any recommendation or advice will be appreciated.