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Why invest in a home lab in 2022?

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

A decade ago, home labs were all the rage in my Twitter circle. I had home lab envy – I’m not gonna lie. Visions of Synology and servers dancing in my mind.

Thinking back to that time, it was also when Dell and others were shipping truckloads of hardware onsite to conference to run hands-on-labs. It was BC. You know, Before Cloud.

Cloud changed much of this for IT professionals. Instant, on-demand resources for learning and exploring are common. I can spin up a demo environment and take a test drive on most solutions quickly and easily. Many of those solutions are Cloud-native today.

After moving in 2016, I never rebuilt my home lab. For the last 6 years, I have had tons of hardware at my disposal to tinker, until I had no time to tinker.

But then, a change.

Last month, I started buying hardware components on eBay and Amazon to rebuild my lab. But, why did I decide to revive a home lab in 2022?

Not everything is cloud. I’m working with a lot of customers in a hybrid stance and there’s a lot of traditional IT that still needs to be maintained, lifecycled and upgraded.

Sometimes the cloud labs are missing core pieces of the process. While I could leverage vendor provided lab environments, most of these demos don’t start at square one. Some don’t even allow you to do the installs and instead simulate the screens. I believe there is value and lessons to be learned starting from the bare metal.

I am a hands-on learner. It is a byproduct of years of being hands-on-keyboard as an administrator and engineer. Classes and online learning modules are good for me, but never as good as simply installing a product, configuring it, breaking it, fixing it and eventually mastering it.

Goals

In terms of goals, I would say first is learning and gaining the knowledge to pass certifications. Second, is a place to try things and vet ideas.

I recently started a new role at XenTegra as a Solutions Architect. While I’m a long-time VMware SME, there’s a lot of technologies I want to learn and experiment with. I also need time to get into the weeds of the products to attain certifications, proving and certifying my knowledge through accreditation. I need to brush off those VMware Horizon skills, since it was called View when I last ran it.

One of the best parts of my job is trying things – coming up with strategies and then making sure that they work. To tinker. I feel like I need a place where I can make that happen without interrupting others and their work. My teammates are doing similar lab builds on hosted resources, but those environments are built not just for learning, they are also for show and demo. The environments have different goals – the shared should always be ready for show.

When the time comes, to be able to demo functionality. While I don’t expect my home lab to be ready to demo at any given time, I do want the ability to log in remotely and check something or show off a UI or concept when my shared lab environments aren’t available. As with anything shared, I don’t have full control – but for this little nugget, its all mine. (Insert some sort of bad cartoon villain here. I heard a cackle as I wrote that line.)

Bottom Line

I’d argue that for many, it may not make sense to build a home lab in 2022. For me, maybe call me old-school. I’m looking forward to what I learn on the way and how I can use this tiny little cluster of goodness. I think that is one of my differentiators – while I can talk strategy and architecture all day long with you – I can also run the tech and know that it’ll live up to what I’m selling you. I love having both perspectives, and the ability to translate between the two.

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AppleHome LabHome TechNetworkingProjects

Upgrading to Ubiquiti’s EdgeRouter X SFP

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

New house.  New city.  New ISP.  New router.  This time I opted for the big brother of the EdgeRouter Lite, the EdgeRouter X SFP model.  While it includes all of the goodness that I previously reviewed with the EdgeRouter, including the Vyatta based OS, the X SFP model includes some additional hardware capabilities.

Why a new router?  I previously had an EdgeRouter Lite and I really enjoyed the device.  Unfortunately, during the move, my EdgeRouter Lite stopped responding – so I went back to my backup Apple Airport router temporarily – and after we moved into our house, it was time to replace my trusty router with something equally capable.

My requirements this time were:

  • VLAN capable (segregate those guest and route multiple VLANs for my lab environment)
  • Power Over Ethernet to reduce power plugs
  • Ability to setup VPN endpoints and selectively route

SFP Possibilities

As the name implies, the EdgeRouter X SFP offers a single SFP interface, allowing this device to also serve as a fiber converter.  While only 1 gigabit capable, the SFP capability would allow connectivity in environments where normal copper uplinks to remote switches would not work.

I imagine there are some geekier folks – like myself – that might have nicer lab switches where traditional CAT5 wiring is a bummer – but the SFP is a rescue by allowing TwinAx is preferable.

I once consulted for a church that had purchased a former music theater – full stage, lights, sound, etc. – but the office were backstage and they needed WiFi and connectivity in the front lobby area.  Fiber was the answer and a couple of fiber media converters were used to change media format.  With the EdgeRouter X SFP, you could do this without additional hardware.  A couple EdgeRouters would suit this use very well, also allowing multiple VLANs or additional routing to segment traffic on the network and enhance security.

POE & Disappointment

Next up is Power Over Ethernet.  The use cases for the EdgeRouter X SFP lists powering up to 5 of Ubiquiti’s AirMax wireless bridge devices and using the SFP for backhaul, so I made the assumption that the POE capabilities would be more than enough for my Unifi AC Access Point.  While I missed it, Ubiquiti does clearly label the device as a 24V POE product.   That lead me to a rather brash education in POE and standards.

My AP is an Ubiquiti UniFi Enterprise AC (UAP-AC) wireless access point, purchased in 2015.   It runs on IEEE 802.3af/802.3at POE.  My injector for the Enterprise AC AP injects 48V of power on the Ethernet to power the AC, twice what the EdgeRouter support.  This is the same for the current generation of UniFi UAP-AC-PRO, UAC-AC-EDU, & UAC-AC-HD.  These heavier duty, more powerful AP’s require more juice and can be powered by IEEE standard POE switches.

Fortunately, if you really want to power your AC – there are two options in the UniFi line that work with the 24V POE of the EdgeRouter X and EdgeRouter X SFP – the UAP-AC-LITE and UAP-AC-LR models.

ISP Issues

I ran into issues streaming from certain networks on my new ISP.  While the trifecta – Hulu, Netflix and Amazon – stream just fine, some network apps like NBC and CW fail to stream any video content.  This is across all of my Apple mobile devices and Apple TV’s.  It works on the Mac fine, however.  So, lets try it over a VPN connection, I think.  On my iPhone it works perfectly on VPN.  So, I decided to use the same trick to setup a point to point VPN from the EdgeRouter X SFP and selectively route my Apple TV out over the VPN – bingo, I’m streaming.  I have no idea what my ISP is trying to block or has misconfigured, but its good to be able to work around them.

Verdict

I purchased another generation of EdgeRouter because I love the flexibility of the software powering the device.  The device itself is inexpensive and offers a lot of capabilities for the money.  For less than $75 currently on Amazon, you can take one home today…

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DatacenterHome LabStorageVirtualization

Setting up VSAN in vSphere 6.5 > Hint, its super easy!

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

New job, new lab.  I’ve been rebuilding our lab environment and for the first time, I have enough hardware to really give VSAN a whirl.   I have 6 hosts with Intel Xeon E5645 procs and 4 x 400GB SSD’s in each server.

Being a lab environment, I knew I wanted to deploy a different SDS solution.  I’ve worked with HPE’s StoreVirtual in the past and I was able to do a hands-on POC with an EMC ScaleIO SDS earlier this year.  VSAN, however, had been elusive for me, so I took this opportunity to work through that solution.

The biggest hurdles in building VSAN is the underlying hardware.  The software, as with most of VMware’s solutions, is dead simple to configure and make the solution work.  Even though I have good hardware, I’m not strictly compatible per the HCL, but this doesn’t keep VSAN from working very well.

But my SSD’s show up as HDD’s

Back to the hardware – these older IBM System x’s – did not support JBOD passthrough on the RAID controllers.  While it was a pain to setup, there is a workable solution.  In the RAID controller, you have to build a RAID disk in a RAID 0 configuration for each drive and then present it out as a virtual drive.  This is far from ideal, but works in a lab.  The one problem it creates is masking the SSD capabilities from ESXi.  ESXi sees these virtual disks as hard drives instead of solid state.

Fortunately, a little ESXCLI magic and you can override this – first you have to list all the local disks – the exact command will vary a little based on your hardware, but since all these were connected to my IBM servers, I was able to use a grep for IBM.

<code>esxcli storage core device list | grep IBM</code>

You just need to figure out what identifies your local disk type and then grep for the same thing.

For the rest, I followed the instructions in this VMware tech document – https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.storage.doc%2FGUID-99BB81AC-5342-45E5-BF67-8D43647FAD31.html (these instructions work with 6.0 and 6.5, even though the document is for 5.5).

<code>esxcli storage nmp satp rule add -s SATP –device device_name –option=”enable_ssd”</code>

Lastly, you need the system to ‘reclaim’ the disk with the new policy.

<code>esxcli storage core claiming reclaim –device device_name</code>

Now the easy part

VSAN is built-in to vSphere 6.0 and 6.5, so via the vSphere Web Client, so setup is very simple.  Instead of step-by-step, these instructions are the outline of steps to setup your own VSAN.

  1. On each of your nodes to be used for VSAN, setup 10Gig VMKernel adapters and check the box for Enable Virtual SAN.  You need at least one and I decided to re-use my iSCSI connections for the lab.  [Someone familiar with best practices, comment is this is bad idea].
  2. In the vSphere Web Client, navigate to your cluster object, navigate to the Configure tab for it and then select General under Virtual SAN.
  3. Enable virtual SAN > click Edit… next to Virtual SAN and then check the box to “Turn ON Virtual SAN.” [as a side note, I’ve always loved how easy HA clustering is to enable, and Virtual SAN is just as simple – although you have a little config left to complete]

    I kept the default of adding disks Manually to my installation.  If you have JBOD passthrough and your SSD’s show up as SSD’s automatically, go for Automatic disk add…
  4. Next step is adding disks, just a simple – go to Disk Management, click the Claim Disks button and then for each host, choose how you’d like to adopt the disks.  For my systems, I chose Capacity at the host level, which is inherited to all disks in the host, then I went back and chose one Cache disk per host.  Click OK and your VSAN is building.

You’ll see a number of tasks in the background under Recent Tasks.

Last, you’ll see a new Datastore presented from your VSAN which is an aggregate of all the disks and groups from all your participating systems.

One last tip, go ahead to the Monitor tab and then go to Performance.  Click on Virtual SAN – either option – and then enable performance monitoring.

Why VSAN for the lab?

I had several reasons…

  1. No drive penalty…  With solutions like HPE’s StoreVirtual and EMC’s ScaleIO, you must have a VM ‘controller’ that is the main connection to your local storage and presents it up to servers for consumption.  StoreVirtual has a virtual appliance and ScaleIO has its SDS in virtual appliance form – but with a VM, you have to store the base VM image somewhere, meaning one less drive to be setup in your drive pool.
  2. It is tightly integrated into vSphere, meaning less management points.
  3. I have entitlements for my lab via the vExpert program, so price is not an issue.   For others, check out VMUG Advantage – while not free, it is a great value for your home lab.
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Home LabHome TechNetworkingPersonalVirtualization

The Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite is a Swiss Army Knife for Home Lab networks

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

Building out the networking side of my home lab has been the most challenging part of my home lab.  I’ll be the first to confess – I’m not a networking guy – at least, that’s not a primary focus for me.  I rely on my network folks at work – but I understand enough to handle networking in vSphere, but when it comes to routing and things like OSPF and Spanning Tree, I let the professionals handle it.

I’ve written several times about the hardware and plans for my home lab systems.  But, to mock up the enterprise environments that I’d like to in my lab, I needed a more powerful router – something capable of carrying multiple VLANs and routing for each.  I have always relied on an integrated router with WiFi for my home, but this just wasn’t getting the job done.  Last week, I wrote about upgrading my WiFi and this week, the router is in the cross-hairs.

The primary goals I had in my network were:

  • A dedicated home network for my wife, kids and TV’s to connect to Internet
  • Separate set of VLANs to mock up production vSphere environments
  • Separate video network for multicast traffic from an HD HomeRun to my MacPro with EyeTV
  • The MacPro needs to be on my primary, home network but also must route to the other VLANs to manage vSphere, VMs, and the HDHomeRun.

There are some software solutions that would help me like VyOS, the open source distribution of Vyatta which is owned by Brocade.  I looked at VyOS a couple times, but I disliked this method because everything would still come back to my primary home network.  I wanted a cleaner solution – so I looked at hardware.   There are several flash-able, hardware routers and I looked at several running DD-WRT or Tomato.  I was very close to purchasing one of these solutions when a coworker suggest I look at an Ubiquiti’s EdgeRouter Lite.

edgerouterlite

The Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite is an under-$100 hardware router running a flavor of Vyatta.  If offers 3 ports on the Lite model with your choice of more ports if you needed them on higher models.  There is also a Power Over Ethernet variant of the Lite model.  The device is router only – no WiFi or other converged functions.  The router is rated at 1 million packets per second, but not being a network nerd, that only sounds impressive to me – not sure how that stacks up versus the competition.  It is certainly better than my Apple AirPort Extreme.

With this hardware router, I can have a dedicated port for my primary home network and one for home lab systems, with multiple VLANs, multiple DHCP zones and keep everything separate.  It also means I had a host of other things capable from command line on the small, hardware box.

This wasn’t my first Ubiquiti network purchase.  I had recently purchased a Ubiquiti UniFi AC wireless access point, which I wrote about last week.   What I have discovered is that Ubiquiti makes good quality hardware, with enterprise-like features at a home cost.  So, let me recap how this hardware hit my list of must-haves.

Step 1 – Dedicated Home Network

Out of the box, the EdgeRouter Lite comes with DHCP enabled on port 0 so you plug in the router, plug in a computer and go to the web interface on 192.168.1.1.  You login with the generic ubnt/ubnt password combination and off you go.  There is a wizard that allows for quick configuration of 2 LAN and 1 WAN ports – I used it to setup the EdgeRouter Lite as I intended to use it.  Ports 0 and 2 became LAN ports and port 1 became my WAN port.  Plug in my internet to port 1 and then uplink the EdgeRouter from port 0 to my network switch and my primary network was back online.  This hit the first point on my list – a dedicated primary home network that is a no tinkering zone.

Step 1a – OpenVPN from EdgeRouter

Not long after getting my EdgeRouter, I began having some issues getting to Hulu.  I was able to leverage Vyatta to setup an OpenVPN tunnel for my Apple TV only, thanks to instructions from Larry Land, to get around some sort of routing or blocking issue.  Another great feather in the EdgeRouter’s cap.  This configuration required some command-line action, but it was simple to configure and get running.

This exercise also taught me a bit about special routing tables and utilizing the Vyatta firewall features to redirect a single IP on my network to a specific set of routes or location.  It was a bit of a crash course for me.  But I can appreciate the flexibility that Vyatta brings under the covers of this device.

Step 2 – Separate VLANs for Home Lab

Next came setting up the separate VLANs for the home lab.  That was a piece of cake.  Within the EdgeRouter Lite’s web interface, you can add a VLAN interface onto a port with the click of button. Within 5 minutes, I had all 5 of my VLANs that I wanted for the home lab created on port 2 of the EdgeRouter.  The add interface allows you to set an IP for the EdgeRouter on the new VLAN while defining it.   After adding the VLAN, you have to create a DHCP scope within Services for each of the VLANs.

Step 3 – Separate Video Multicast from the Primary Network

While the EdgeRouter allows me to create a dedicated VLAN for video to keep multicast off of my primary network, I finally had a different light-bulb moment.  I decided instead to direct wired my HD Homerun into the Mac Pro where I run EyeTV.  The one problem that I ran into was getting an address for the HD HomeRun.  I hard coded an IP on a different subnet on the secondary NIC of Mac Pro and then added DHCP on the Mac for that NIC only to hand out an address to the HD HomeRun.

Other Capabilities

This is a router, after all, so static and dynamic routes along with a host of network routing protocols are included – like OSPF, RIP and BGP.

Under Services section in the web configuration tool, you will find both DHCP and DNS forwarding.  The DNS forwarding allows the router to serve as a local DNS server and then forward out those requests to specified servers.  This is particularly great for what I want to do, where one VLAN may need to point back to my internal DNS server for the management and VM VLANs while others need to point to Google’s DNS or my ISP.

The built-in web interface allows for a lot of configuration without ever needing to go to the command line, but both methods are possible.  The built-in firewall allows for different rules to be built based on groups or individual systems behind the router.

The EdgeRouter Lite also has Quality of Service (QoS) settings so I hope to be able to prioritize traffic from my AT&T MicroCell to have highest priority in the network, though I have not set this up yet.  I will need to put in some research and see how to do that.

You may setup Dynamic DNS directly from the GUI of the EdgeRouter, assisting in resolution back to your network from remote locations.

Vyatta also allows you to setup VPN server on the device for remote access.  I wrote about using the EdgeRouter Lite as a site-to-site VPN for OpenVPN, but it can also become a VPN server to allow you remote access back to your network.  Rackspace has a great guide to setting this up in Vyatta.  There are lots of other options within the VPN space – including having the EdgeRouter become its own OpenVPN server.

Verdict

I couldn’t be happier with the outcome and decision to purchase this router.  The Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite is small and fits nicely into my structured wiring box.  It is fast and capable and has kept up with everything I have needed.  It has provided additional capabilities that may have been more difficult with other flash router solutions.  It is quiet and it was also fairly inexpensive.

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Home LabHome Tech

Upgrading to a better class of home Wifi – the Ubiquiti UniFi AC access point

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

unifiapac-hero-01A few weeks ago, I purchased and installed a Ubiquiti UniFi AC access point in my home and its the best WiFi coverage that I have ever had.  The UniFi AC is an 802.11ac access point that supports both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz simultaneously.  At the 5Ghz frequency, the device is rated for up to 1300Mbps throughput and 450Mbps throughput over 2.4Ghz.  It supports client devices on 802.11a/b/g/n & ac.  All of these standards are supported over the same SSID, meaning your device can prefer 5Ghz when close enough and 2.4Ghz when further away.

The AP has two Ethernet ports, with one being PoE to power the device.  There is not a separate power connector, but the unit does come with a PoE injector that accepts the uplink and then provides power and uplink to the access point.

The UniFi AC is a dedicated access point only, so you will need a separate router.  If you are like most customers, your DSL or cable modem comes with an integrated router.  The WiFi on these carrier provided devices is often anemic, at best.  So adding a more powerful access point can be a great solution for solid WiFi while leveraging your modem/router from your Internet service provider, that the ISP fully supports.

Installation

Installation and configuration is simple.  Plug in the PoE injector into a power outlet, connect the network uplink  network into the LAN port of the injector and connect to the PoE port into the access point.  This allows you to easily hide or disguise the power injector in a different location and all you need is an Ethernet cable where you want to locate the AP.  For larger deployments, Ubiquiti offers PoE switches and routers that remove the need for the power injector or use any PoE enabled switch to power the AP.

Configuration is all handled through a software called UniFi controller.  There is no on-board interface for configuration, you install and launch the Java/Tomcat based UniFi controller on a computer and it allows you to configure one or more UniFi AP’s.  You may upload a map or pull in a map from Google Maps and place our AP on the map to see coverage expected.

Features

The UniFi AC allows for a separate guest network, including a separate VLAN all together if your network can support this.  For businesses, you can setup hotspots with integration into billing portals and voucher-based authentication.  In addition, you can limit the bandwidth of guest users.

The UniFi is capable of performing wireless uplink from AP to AP to extend range.

A beta version of the UniFi software is introducing a zero handoff feature where users can move from AP to AP in larger environments seamlessly like it were all one large AP.

Once configured, all of these features are available and continue to operate without the UniFi controller online. This is a huge plus since most standalone or enterprise-grade access points require a software or hardware controller to function.  The UniFi line does offer enough brains to operate, even if the configuration requires the controller software.

A full rundown of all the features is available on the Ubiquiti website.

Verdict

You don’t have to spend much time on my blog to realize that I love Apple products.  Recently, my Apple AirPort Extreme began exhibiting some flaky issues.  After talking with technical support at my ISP, my router was determined to be the problem.  Apple tech support was great and replaced my router under warranty, but in the meantime, I decided to invest in an upgrade.

At almost $300, the UniFi AC is not a cheap upgrade.  802.11ac is a very new standard and it is the fastest possible WiFi you can invest in.  If you don’t need the speed of the AC model or want something more budget friendly, Ubiquiti also makes an UniFi AP 802.11n at a much more affordable price and I initially tried one of these from a coworker.  I was so impressed, I went ahead and purchased my own 802.11ac model.

 

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Home LabHome Tech

Home lab update for Christmas

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

This Christmas, I stumbled upon a full height rack at a local closeout warehouse.  My wife and I like to shop second-hand or closeout stores – we have a couple in our area that deal in merchandise from big box stores that didn’t move at clearance or were slightly damaged.  We have had good luck finding deals in the past – like my HD video camera (still worth more on eBay than I paid 4 years ago), my TV/Mac Pro 27″ monitor (under $100 a year ago) and toys for the kids.

Saturday, I had one of those finds.  I had seen an ad on Craiglist and I thought the photo showed a server rack, but I wasn’t sure.  The description was generic and so my wife and I decided to check it out.  This was a new business (to us) we had not been to before, but we will be returning.  They seemed to have a lot of nice quality stuff and tucked in a back corner, I spotted the rack.   My hunch was confirmed, it was a metal 42U rack with door.  It was clear the owners didn’t know what they had – the wife even asking what I planned to use it for – she said she had so many ideas. We should have asked how she would use it!  It was priced at $100.  It included two generic set of rails to hold a rack-mount server and two slide out shelves – an additional bonus.  The metal alone was probably worth over $100, if recycled…  So, we bought it and brought it home.

I was able get it into the house – thanks to a neighbor’s helping hand – and it is very well made and heavy!  I rolled it into my office and it cleared the door with just a millimeter to spare.  I’ve mounted some of my lab equipment in the rack and some other pieces are still works in progress.

I didn’t really have room in my office for a full rack, but at that price, it was difficult to say no.  I like having the door for noise reduction and it gives me plenty of room to expand.  I’ll probably run out of power before I run out of space.  A rack has been on my wish list for a while for the home lab I’m slowly building.  I had searched eBay and other places and I could fine 12U or 18U racks – mostly audio racks – for around $150-$170, but not a server depth rack.  I’ve found some really cool vintage racks and equipment that has been removed from use on eBay – unfortunately, most racks either ship freight for a couple hundred dollars or are local pickup only in locations on the west coast.  I had not been able to find anything relatively local on eBay.

I rearranged my office to make room for the new rack and so far, its working really well.  The sliding shelves inside the rack were perfect for holding my HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 and PS1810 switch.  I need a pair of mounting brackets for my Procurve 2510 switch.  I had also found a SuperMicro 1U rackmount chassis on eBay for under $50, so I picked it up a few months ago.  Now that I have the rack, I decided to move my whitebox server into a rackmount chassis.  Although I like my PowerMac G4 mod, the cabling inside did not work out like I wanted and the wires were hitting the cooling fan on the processor from time to time – not a good situation.

Happy New Year!

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Home Lab

Whitebox Homelab Build with PowerMac G4 case mod

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

In early September, I began planning and building my first home lab system.  My system is largely based on the specs of the Baby Dragon from Phil Jaenke (@RootWyrm) and taking advice from Chris Wahl’s (@ChrisWahl) builds.  I decided to add my own twist to the project by modding a PowerMac G4 case to accommodate the SuperMicro motherboard.  For the project, I purchased:

  • SuperMicro MBD-X9SCM-F Server Motherboard – $157.99 (Amazon)
  • Intel Xeon Quad-Core E3-1220V2 3.1 GHz Processor – $206.99 (Amazon)
  • 16GB 2X8GB RAM – DDR3 ECC UDIMM 240pin PC3-12800 1600MHz – $214.96 (Amazon)
  • Corsair CX Series 500Power Supply – $65.99 (Amazon)
  • Western Digital RED 1TB hard drive – $79.99 (NewEgg)
  • 90GB OCZ 2.5″ SATA II SSD drive (recertified) – $59.99 (NewEgg)

Modifying the case proved to be really fun and easy.  I had not attempted anything like this, but it was a good opportunity to break out the dremel and enjoy a cool afternoon on my back porch working on the case.  All of the case mods were done within just a few hours.  I ended up having to run and pickup new stand-offs from Radio Shack, but otherwise, I had everything I needed at home.

One of the nice surprises I found was being able to reuse the power assembly from the PowerMac G4 to power the new motherboard.  A post from tonymacx86 forums gave me great tips on how to solder the necessary pins so that the power button would work without the programmable chipset on the board.  And its been a long time since I’ve soldered anything – but it proved very easy to do.

So, after its all said and done, the things that bug me about this build are:

  • The extra power cords that attach on the far side of the motherboard – makes it difficult to keep them clear when shutting the case.
  • Power supply is too far from motherboard connections to route cables appropriately – will need to look at extending the cables to the motherboard
  • Power button hack works great, but power light isn’t illuminated – probably an easy fix
  • I’m unhappy with my fan situation – so I will be looking to add some additional cooling to the case

The actual motherboard and server all came together very nicely.  Overall, I ran into relatively few problems – however RAM proved to be my biggest issue and delayed actually using the system by a couple weeks.  I initially ordered incompatible RAM from Amazon and had to go through the process or returning and ordering the correct DIMMs – but once that was done, it was smooth sailing.

So my MacMod Home Server project is still a hobby at this point. So, maybe there’ll be a followup in the coming months as I have time to tinker around the holidays.  I hope to have this in production and usable soon.

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Review: HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 has big biz features in a small biz box

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

ReviewMicroserver

Its been two months since my HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 arrived and I’ve had an opportunity to run it in a couple different configurations.  Out of the box, Windows Server Essentials 2012 came pre-installed on my eval unit and on first boot, configuration kicked off to setup and configure an Active Directory domain and setup all the basics of a small office deployment.

Procs & RAM

First, I am really glad that HP chose to move to Intel processors for the Gen8 model of the MicroServer.  Their AMD processors in the G7 model was probably the only reason that I did not purchase one of those units before.  For some reason, I along with many other administrators just have a disposition towards Intel processors instead of AMD.  When speaking with Shad Madina, Group Manager for Portfolio Planning and Solutions at HP, he also shared that HP found the AMD processors to be a sticking point with domestic buyers, although the AMD processors seemed to be well accepted in Europe.

The processors in the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 are more along the lines of desktop processors rather than the normal Xeon processors normally found in servers.  The lower end server features Intel Celeron processors and the higher end Gen8 model features a Pentium processor.  Both models feature dual core models but unfortunately there is not even an option for a quad-core model at this time.  As I covered earlier, the Gen8 model raises the RAM limit to 16GB which helps to accommodate a wider range of opportunities in the market, including small virtualization farms.

Hide and go RAID

I knew from the spec sheets that the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 included a SATA RAID controller in the unit, however, during boot and the initial OS load, I noticed that it did not mention anything about Smart Array or offer a management interface to access and provision RAID sets like the larger Proliants do.  This is simply because the embedded SATA controller is turned on by default and the RAID SATA controller is not enabled.  A quick trip through the BIOS turned up the option to enable the Dynamic SATA controller and after a reboot and POST, I was able to login to Intelligent Provisioning and create RAID sets from the drives I had installed.

When I spoke with Madina, he was quick to point out that HP purposefully decided when designing the MicroServer to have a different set of trade-offs than were normal.  The normal trade-offs were basic functionality, like RAID, cut for the sake of saving money.  With the MicroServer, one of the trade-offs is the lack of hot-swappable hard drives and bays. This is a bit of a bummer but its a small price to pay when HP didn’t want to compromise other basic necessities.

Noise, or lack thereof

HP touts the quietness of the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 saying that it is quieter than a laptop.  This is certainly the case.  Today, when I walked into my office, I actually had to check and ensure that it was on and running because I could not hear any noise coming from the unit.  Now, this is after the MicroServer has been on and settled down.  At boot, like its big-brothers, the Proliant MicroServer sound like a jet ready for take off – but after POST completes and the system begins booting, things quiet down to a negligible level.

My first week with the MicroServer was a slightly different story, however.  When I first received the unit and powered it up, I thought it was fairly noisy, especially for someone touted to be under 20db of noise.  But, my first week’s experience was a fluke of some kind – because once I shut it down to explore inside and then booted it again, the noisiness was nowhere to be found.

I will go on to say, that after testing the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 and comparing it with my home-built server, I prefer the MicroServer hand-down and big reason is how much quieter this unit is than my server.

Virtualization friendly

After a month of exploring the MicroServer while running Windows Server Essentials 2012, I reinstalled the server to run ESXi and this is how I plan to keep the system running in the future.  The demo unit I received came with the maximum 16GB of RAM loaded.  This is a very welcome configuration for running a lab ESXi install.  I was able to install the HP OEM version of ESXi onto the MicroServer which included additional agents inside the OS.

ESXi installs flawlessly onto the MicroServer Gen8.  There were no special drivers or hoops to jump through to make it work on this hardware.

Even though the MicroServer Gen8 received a RAM limit boot, I wish still it had gone higher or that it accepted 4 x 8GB DIMM instead of two.  32GB of RAM and even better 64GB would greatly broaden the virtualization use cases for many customers.  Still, 16GB is sufficient for many test and lab environments to be able to test many solutions.

Remote Management, sort-of

One of the nice surprises in the unit is the inclusion of a full iLO4 chip on the motherboard.  This replaces the optional remote management card which came with the G7 models of MicroServer.  The iLO4 is much more capable and potentially useful than the previous remote management cards, however the one let-down was the unit comes with iLO Standard only, which does not support virtual media and remote console, except during boot.  To get the additional features, an iLO Essentials or iLO Advanced license is needed.

HP has introduced iLO Essentials licensing and targets it directly at SMB users who want remote management.  iLO Essentials license includes fully functional remote console, virtual media and email alerts for $129. Its a small tax to get basic remote management functionality and its better than the requirement to purchase iLO Advanced license for $299, since most small businesses would not use the additional features that iLO Advanced brings.  iLO Advanced brings features like recording remote console sessions, authentication from directory services, multi-user remote console (for collaboration) and advanced alerting options. (For a full comparison of licensing levels and features included, see this PDF from HP).

iLO Standard is not useless, however.  There is a lot that iLO does with no additional license — agent-less hardware management, remote support, remote power buttons, and the embedded health systems.  The onboard system integrates with HP’s Insight Online service to allow administrators to manage and view all their systems and health through a central portal for free.

But, I will say I expected remote console and virtual media to be included, so it was let-down here.  However, here is a pro-tip for you – make sure to check secondary markets (eBay) for these licenses.  It may be possible to pickup iLO Advanced license for less than you can buy the iLO Essentials license.

PS1810-8G Switch

I am really happy with the PS1810-8G switch.  I like the way that it compliments the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 and its space saving for my home lab.  8 ports accommodates three home servers easily and allows for some room to grow.  The VLAN support helps partition traffic among my servers so that I can segment video traffic away from web and management traffic and then keep my normal browsing, Netflix and home operations separate from my lab environment.

Pricing

Pricing for the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 starts at just $449 with an Intel Celeron G1610T processor and 2GB of RAM.  The higher end server is priced at $529 and comes with an Intel Pentium G2020T processor and 2GB of RAM.  Bundles are available with the PS1810-8G switch and are priced at $634 and $714 respectively directly from HP.

Verdict

I would score the HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 a solid 8.5 out of 10.  On the plus side, it is quiet, power-efficient and well suited for out-of-datacenter uses that most  businesses have.  I think there are so many remote-office and branch-office uses for the server beyond just the small and medium business markets.

On the downsides, I wish the processors were quad-core instead of dual-core.  I also wish the RAM could be expanded beyond 16GB.  But the downsides really stop there.  Dual gigabit NICs are very capable and if you required more, there is a PCI expansion slot that could accommodate up to an additional 4 ports.  The PCI slot could also be used for HBA or other peripherals as required.

The pricing of the systems also puts this in a sweet spot for many small businesses who don’t have dedicated IT budgets.  I’ve worked with a lot of small business and for entry level servers, its a hard sell with a $1,200 to $1,500 server.  The MicroServer represents a very compelling additional option for a lot of use cases.

I’m very impressed with the system overall.  I think its a fantastic choice for a lot of small business and remote office use cases.  I’m impressed enough that I plan to buy a second unit for home to use as a lab system in the near future.  I’ll discuss why I’d choose this over a whitebox build in a later post another day.

Now, go win one…

Its your turn now to win a bundle just like my eval bundle for your home or small office or your remote office needs.  Its very easy to win – just head over to our Giveaway page for all the details on the contest and you could be a winner.  And keep in mind, there are two other bloggers giving away the same bundle the same time as Techazine – make sure to go and enter there too.

Disclaimer: HP provided me with both the HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 and the HP PS1810-8G for review at no charge.  The opinions and views of the hardware written here are entirely my own and HP had no say in what I choose to write.  The hardware came with no strings attached.    

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DatacenterHome LabHome TechProjectsStorage

Endless possibilities for a MicroServer

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

ReviewMicroserver

Lots and lots of Possibilities

This weekend, I was able to get the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 setup and powered on in my lab.  Its currently burning in and I’m doing some testing with it.  What do I think?  Well, you’ll have to wait until I have had more time with it before I share my impressions.  But that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about use cases.

Use Case – Creating a Lab environment

Beyond the stylish exterior, the HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 can fit into a lot of possible environments and use cases.  The first one that comes to mind is my own – the home lab.  As an IT professional, its become imperative that I have a lab environment at home where I can test software and solutions. I have gotten lots of offers for trials and software from blogging and for solving my problems at work.

Many of my peers build their own whitebox systems and I have attempted recently, too.  I hadn’t built a computer in close to a decade. And my first experience trying to build a whitebox has been bumpy.  I’ll admit, I have enjoyed using a soldering iron again, but it can be frustrating trying to piece together a compatible solution.  I’d prefer to buy something ready made and that makes the MicroServer Gen8 really compelling to me.  Time is valuable, so the time I’ve spent tinkering could have been more productive if I just bought a ready-made system.

Use Case – Networked Storage

With four drive bays, the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 is capable of up to 12TB of storage on board with 3TB drives in each bay.  That makes it a viable candidate as a NAS solution for home or business.  There are so many implementations like FreeNAS and Openfiler to turn the MicroServer into a NAS appliance.

In addition to just file sharing, these software storage solutions have lots of add-on functionality to take basic file storage and make it useful in the home for being your media repository of movies, TV shows and music and being the source for streaming to your TV-connected box, your Android or iPhone or even some home stereo systems.  Add-on a VPN solution and it becomes your personal media cloud when you’re away from home, too.   FreeNAS can also serve as a destination for TimeMachine or other backup software solutions, so now not only primary storage but backup of your PCs and Macs.

Even again in a home lab situation, NAS distributions support iSCSI and NFS, making the MicroServer a viable storage target for VMware and other virtualization in a lab environment.   The NAS proposition has uses in so many ways.  In a lot of ways, this use case of a Proliant MicroServer offers a better performing and possibly lower cost alternative to a Synology or Drobo NAS device.  And if your needs change, you can alway repurpose or hand-me-down this server, where the others are only ever capable of being a NAS.

Use Case – Virtual Host

Running a hypervisor on the MicroServer should just be reserved for the lab – its capable of prime time.  A lot of small businesses don’t have space or need for racks, rackmount hardware or even pedestal servers.  In many cases, these small businesses run on three to five physical servers anyways, so consolidating these aging physical servers to two or three MicroServers would allow the business to save power and footprint.

The Proliant MicroServer Gen8 has a remarkably small footprint, low power consumption and small heat output.    It can easily sit on a desktop or a shelf and is not nearly as obtrusive as a tower, pedestal or rackmount server.  While not as condensed as a blade, it could serve a similar purpose in a small business environment.

Use Case – Microbusiness

There are a lot of one and two person businesses and the number of micro businesses seems to have exploded in recent years.  Perhaps its a combination of the Internet lowering the barriers of entry and the terrible economy pushing people out of traditional jobs.  These businesses still have traditional needs and while many use the cloud, the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 offers a compelling self hosted solution at a price point that is competative to many cloud solutions.  A micro business may need to file or print share, have a VPN or prehaps run Remote Desktop to host a local accounting or line of business application.  And a MicroServer hosted onsite provides those features – along with the ability to access a Remote Desktop session from a mobile device on the road.

Use Case – App Server

A lot of small businesses who have either outgrown or need more tailored solutions than Quickbooks and those accounting packages usually require databases and other shared access.  This server is more than capable of running SQL Express or full Microsoft SQL and an application on bare metal along with the application.   Then there are all the customized line of business applications – from hotels, to legal, to doctor’s offices, restaurants and even mechanics.  While a lot of these have cloud solutions, many companies still rely on installed, local software to run their business and a MicroServer fits nicely.  Specifically thinking about point of sale in restaurants as a use case – having deployed several of those in my time – a compact server like this would be a welcome platform – especially at the price of these boxes.

Use Case – Policy, Accounts and Security in the Small Business

Then, there is always the business whose growing beyond the two or three person mark and needs to begin thinking about accounts, security and enforcing policy and automating some management.  The Proliant MicroServer is great for a basic AD implementation, too.  With a domain controller deployed, accounts and policy becomes possible, file shares can be more tightly secured and controlled and systems can be tied down to accounts that offer access from multiple devices.  I implemented so many of these small office when I was a consultant.  Managers or owners needed to lock down systems or ensure that only certain employees had access to some resources and AD makes that all possible.  Add solutions like WSUS and patch management becomes streamlined and managed.

The biggest competition for MicroServer

But the biggest competition for the Proliant MicroServer Gen8 is cloud, possibly more than the bigger Proliants in the portfolio.  Cloud adoption may be least resistant in the small business where the MicroServer aims for adoption.  There are certainly a lot of businesses who are abandoning their client-server applications in favor of cloud solutions, but its not for everyone.  But the days of client-server are far from over.

Disclaimer: HP provided me with both the HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 for review at no charge.  The opinions and views of the hardware written here are entirely my own and have not been influenced or outlined by HP.  The hardware came with no strings attached.    

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Home LabHome TechProjects

A mystery product is on its way to review…

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

ReviewTime

That’s right readers.  I’m expecting something to be delivered any day now for me to review.  I’m incredibly excited to get my hands on this particular hardware and I have been admiring it since it was released this summer.  I’ll give you a clue – I work with this particular hardware’s big brothers every day in the datacenter, but this particular item is built for the small office or home office.  I imagine there are lots of inventive ways this thing can be put to use.  And best of all, not only do I get a review unit, but you’ll have a chance to win one, as well.  Stay tuned…

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