Hyperconverged Home Lab 1.0

[msvirtualguy]

I'm not concerned about it - most of the price is due to the industry-wide tendency to publish stupidly-bloated list prices that no-one ever pays. Maybe if I ever build an enterprise IT product I'll list it at 10 billion dollars, so then I can have an even bigger discount % than everyone else and still sell it for 10x what its worth.

Sorry for derailing the thread a bit - software licensing in general tends to be a topic that makes me mad. Please return to your regularly-scheduled home lab.

Completely understand. What I will say is that licensing, in general, is not going away, rather, the more we moved to the "Software Defined" approach on things which is the direction Data Center Inf is moving, the more conversations we are going to have. I think there is definitely room to get more creative on this front where everyone wins.

 

[snazy2000]

We are listening, and understand. I won't go all out and say anything on this yet.

Sounds promising

 

[msvirtualguy]

Updates added.

 

[msvirtualguy]

Updated the post to reflect Dell X1052 issues. On with tech support now. Will update when i'm done with the call.

 

[msvirtualguy]

Disclaimer: Why Nutanix? I work for Nutanix as an SE.

Build’s Name: SPARTA
Operating System/ Storage Platform: Nutanix Community Edition ce-2015.11.05-stable (Acropolis 4.5)
CPU: 6 x Intel Xeon 5620 Westmeres (important to include AES-NI Support with NutanixCE)
Motherboard: Supermicro X8DTU-6TF+-LR x 3
Chassis: Supermicro CSE-119TQ-R700UB
Drives: 6 x Samsung 480GB 843T's/18 x 1TB Seagate 2.5" Hybrids (Leftover from other project)
RAM: 288GB DDR3 ECC Registered (36 x 8GB)
Add-in Cards: NONE - Built in LSI2108 and 2 x Intel 10Gb SFP+
Power Supply: Dual Supermicro 700W Gold per chassis x 3
Other Bits: Dell X1052 Switch (on order, replacing dual HP 1810-24G's), Cisco TwinAX, Supermicro 19u RACK, UPS - Haven't decided yet, Monster PDU, Ubiquiti Edgemax Router

Usage Profile: This will be for home lab usage to continue my Linux and OpenSource OS learning as well as hosting some prod VMs like the Ubiquity Controller, Blue Iris Video Surveillance software, etc.

Other information… Pics to come soon as I build out the solution and as the parts arrive.

Progress:

12/5/15-Rack and Nodes arrived. Still waiting on :
Dell x1052
2 x TwinAX Cables
12 x 8GB DDR3 ECC 1333 - 1 node missing memory, have temporary in there to test and burn in
1 x USB 3.0 16GB Sandisk

Need to purchase:
UPS
Another node in remote location for backups (Will run in guest backups to NAS temporarily)

12/11/15- Everything has arrived. Just unboxed the Dell X1052 and getting ready to configure.

This weekend will be cabling, and the NutanixCE install which I will outline. If you were wondering about the NUC, that's actually running 2012 Server Core for Domain/DNS services to the lab.

12/14/2015: The experience with the Dell X1052 has not been good. More than likely I have a defective switch. The switch reboots on it's own out of the blue sporadically. The interface is slow, etc, but not sure if that's related to the actual issues i'm having. Right now, the jury is still out but will update this post after my tech support call. On the phone right now.

Update: Switch is defective. Dell is shipping me a new one, however I have to wait a week for new and not refurb. No biggie, these things happen. Will update the post probably on Christmas Vacation.

12/18/2015: New replacement switch was actually overnighted and i'm installing now. I'll update the post soon with the progress but things are looking much better so far.

 

[Patrick]

12/18/2015: New replacement switch was actually overnighted and i'm installing now. I'll update the post soon with the progress but things are looking much better so far.

I am very interested in that switch. I cannot wait to hear what you think.

 

[msvirtualguy]

Patrick, the new switch is working great. Between the Dell rapid rail system, and the configuration, it took me about 15 minutes and that's adding all VLANS, setting up LAGs and Trunks.

I have the three NutanixCE Hyper-converged Nodes humming along connected to three out of the four 10Gb SFP+ connections, will be adding fourth storage only node for backups soon.

The Web interface is probably the only complaint. It's a little slow, and sometimes when you apply the changes you can apply them to the Running and Startup Config, however sometimes you can't and will need to select another menu to do that.

There is CLI, and if you every used Dell's CLI with the PowerConnect line, it's very similar, and of course that's similar to Cisco's so it's a good experience.

I would say a great switch for the price. I got mine at Newegg for $499.

 

[Patrick]

I would say a great switch for the price. I got mine at Newegg for $499.

Thanks for the info. That is a great price. Lowest I see on NE right now is $653!

 

[msvirtualguy]

I've updated my blog to reflect the build progress and put a link in the original post.

 

[msvirtualguy]

Updating this post in the next week. Was on hold for other projects, work, and now vacation. I'll go through the setup and walk through all the features and functionality of the latest CE build based on the most recent 4.6 Production release.

Blog will be updated shortly with series of posts.