[TriLUG] Home Lab Recommendations, Part Deux

[Alan Sterger via TriLUG]

Ron - Thanks for your suggestions.

Unfortunately, this system started life in 2008 as a 64-bit Dell Studio 
540.  According to Dell's system documentation, memory is constrained to 
max 8 GB, disk I/O to SATA 2 (Intel G45 + ICH10R chipset) and on-board 
Gigabit provided by Realtek PCIe GBE controller.  Obviously another NIC 
can be added but am wondering if due to the constrained memory and I/O, 
if my money would be better spent purchasing a new server oriented 
system? I have an Oracle consulting business, so I have the ability to 
write-off the project.

Where does one get ESXi 6?  I looked at VMWare's web site and didn't see 
it advertised as such.  I wouldn't want much of a license restriction, 
probably no more than half-dozen active VMs, hopefully, unlimited number 
of inactive VMs.

Thanks,

-- Alan Sterger


On 1/10/2017 7:40 AM, Ron Kelley wrote:
> Alan,
>
> Your CPU seems to be up to the task.  Personally, I would add more RAM (total 16G), add a second SSD (host one VMs on SSD-1 and other VMs on SSD-2), and install ESXi 6.0 on a USB thumb drive.  Use the web client to install/manage your VMS; you will be all set.  If you are still stuck with I/O issues, add a 3rd SSD and host VMs on that one.  If you need data storage protection (ie: no loss of data), grab an inexpensive RAID card off fleabay (LSI 9260-8i for $130) and create a RAID-5 array.  ESXi works just fine with LSI.
>
> If you want to run Docker, LXD, etc; simply spin up a “heavy” VM (4-8G RAM, 2 vCPUs, etc) and start hosting containers.  I do this all the time.
>
> -Ron
>
>
> On Jan 9, 2017, at 11:51 PM, Alan Sterger via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
>
> Hello TriLugers,
>
> Another lost soul looking for home lab recommendations.  I have an Intel Core2 Quad core Q9550 computer with 8 GB of ram, Gigabit ethernet running on a 256 GB SSD.  I can also add more SSDs and/or spinning rust as needed.
>
> My requirements are to run Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) v6.x (RHEL w/mods) with Oracle Database 11i.  I also need to run Windows 7 (32-bit) Pro, Windows 7 (64-bit) Pro and possibly Windows 10 Pro.  Any VM not needed would be shutdown.
>
> I've used two Type-2 hosted hypervisors, VMware Workstation and VirtualBox each hosted on Windows 7.  Both hypervisors running OEL VM environments seemed a little slow and I/O bound. Probably due to the underlying Windows host.
>
> My thought was to implement a Type-1 hypervisor, headless and use VNC when an interactive session is required.  But I'm hearing other things like Docker, libvirt, containers...
>
> With my mix of Linux and Windows requirements, let me know if I'm on the right track OR point me in a faster, better direction.
>
> Cheers,
>
> -- Alan Sterger
>
>