1. Simon Gallagher http://vinf.nethttp://vinf.net Simon Seagrave http://www.techhead.co.ukhttp://www.techhead.co.uk

2.  Why would you want to do that?  Best boxes for vSphere  Where to get them  Datacentre in a box (virtualized ESX)  Muti-Node TARDIS cluster Demo  Performance I/O Demo  FT Demo  Cheap/Free SAN Storage  Cheap/Free Networking  Software Licensing  Further Information...

3.  Because you can  VCP study  Critical home infrastructure (wife & kids 2.0)  IT is a vocation, not an occupation  Production use cases  Automated install testing  Changes (ITIL)  VUM patch testing

4.  Need:  Cheap  Low-Power!!!  Quiet  Options  eBay an old Proliant  Buy something cheap but less “server”  Find someone else to pay for it (good luck)

5.  New HP ML115 G5 / ML110 G5  With 160Gb HDD, 8GB RAM, dual/quad core ~£330  ML115 G5 is weapon of choice (AMD x64, FT)  Used HP D530  160Gb HDD, With 4Gb ~£90  ESX 3.5 only (not x64)  Build your own (White-box)  Compatibility issues  http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/01/ updated-homebrew-esx-hardware-list.html http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/01/ updated-homebrew-esx-hardware-list.html  Community supported H/W  http://www. vmware.com/resources/ community support/ http://www. vmware.com/resources/ community support/

6.  eBay for old kit  http://www.techhead.co.uk/hot-deals http://www.techhead.co.uk/hot-deals  That “spares” pile – but ask 1 st !

7.  2 x Physical HP ML115 G5 with 8Gb RAM vSphere 4 Servers  1 x HP D530 OpenFiler (1TB iSCSI storage, 60Gb SSD)  Cheap VLAN’able GbE switch  10 x virtual ESXi instances in a HA/DRS cluster  4Gb RAM allocated to each instance (heavy overcommit!)  Software L3 router; Vyatta  Trolley & luggage straps (B&Q)  Approx cost to buy <£1,000  Non-HA version ~£500  Even cheaper if you can recycle the OpenFiler box & Storage

8. VM Network for guest iSCSI VLAN VM Network for guest vMotionVLAN 10.0.0.x Admin Network VMKernel Ports For physical hosts Physical Host Network Config

9. Virtual ESXi Guest Network VMKernel Ports in ESXi Guest These are really vNICs Note: no need to specify VLAN tag – it is done on host

10.  It’s bigger on the inside than outside  vMotion between physical host & VM ESXi (Nested VM)  Host Profiles  VMware Update Manager  Nested Virtual Machines (configuration)  FT (FT’d vCenter & Vyatta installation)

11.  Separate VLAN’s for storage, vMotion, FT  VM Template with multiple vNICs & mounted.ISO  Do not clone installed ESXi/Classic  Physical Host – set vSwitch to allow promiscuous mode otherwise it will not work  Pay attention to max number of ESX hosts to a single shared LUN (or it will stop working)  Nested VM with FT needs special VM configuration & doesn’t work brilliantly  Virtual ESX servers need monitor_control.restrict_backdoor TRUE setting to run nested VMs

12.  SATA, consumer grade SSD is cost-effective  Don’t expect amazing performance, but good-enough  Beware of iSCSI reservation conflicts  OpenFiler  Free, open-source, wide hardware support  Will also run as a VM (caution with HA testing)  Replication possible if you are a Linux wizz  HP Lefthand Virtual Storage Appliance  Not free  30-day eval available  Fault-tolerance/replication & failover possible  EMC Celerra Virtual Machine  Resource hungry  Free  Fully featured  (..more coming from EMC soon; CLARiiON etc.)  NAS – Drobo/IX StorCentre

13.  There are no cheap L3 switches  Old L3 Cisco kit is <£100 but not Gigabit (eBay)  Solution  Cheap SoHo GbE switch that supports VLAN’ing  Linksys SLM series ~£80 for 8 GbE ports & VLAN support  Vyatta software appliance router (VM with multiple vNICs  Configure router VM with FT

14.  VMware software is an expensive problem for the lab  60-day evals out of the box (re-install)  ESXi – but no vMotion/etc.  NFR via employer  Re-using production keys; naughty  The Internet; naughty  No real product activation at present or viable solution to this problem from VMware – No more VMTN subscription!  Microsoft  Mainly for guest VMs or you could try out Hyper-V or Xen if you can’t get an eval license from VMware to use in your lab  Downloadable evals  TechNet Direct – best approach to be legal, and reasonably priced with lots of copies ~£300 unless you go to TechEd then it’s free  Open-Source  Nothing to see here, move along – it’s free!

15.  Reference  http://www.techhead.co.uk/installing-vmware-esx-and-esxi-35-on-an-hp- proliant-ml115-g5-quad-core http://vinf.net/2009/05/21/cheap-vsphere-server/ http://vinf.net/2009/06/07/vsphere-cannot-enable-ft-for-a-nested-vm/ http://vinf.net/2008/05/18/running-esx-35-and-3i-under-vmware- workstation-65-beta-build-91182/ http://www.techhead.co.uk/hot-deals http://www.serversplus.com/product.asp?s=SVHEW-VIRTBUN1 http://vinf.net/2009/10/07/performance-update-on-cheap-vsphere-server/ http://www.techhead.co.uk/installing-vmware-esx-and-esxi-35-on-an-hp- proliant-ml115-g5-quad-core http://vinf.net/2009/05/21/cheap-vsphere-server/ http://vinf.net/2009/06/07/vsphere-cannot-enable-ft-for-a-nested-vm/ http://vinf.net/2008/05/18/running-esx-35-and-3i-under-vmware- workstation-65-beta-build-91182/ http://www.techhead.co.uk/hot-deals http://www.serversplus.com/product.asp?s=SVHEW-VIRTBUN1 http://vinf.net/2009/10/07/performance-update-on-cheap-vsphere-server/  http://vinf.net/2009/11/19/comparing-the-io-performance-of-2-or-more- virtual-machines-ssd-sata-iometer/ http://vinf.net/2009/11/19/comparing-the-io-performance-of-2-or-more- virtual-machines-ssd-sata-iometer/ Simon Seagrave Blog http://www.techhead.co.ukhttp://www.techhead.co.uk Twitter @kiwi_si Simon Gallagher Blog http://vinf.nethttp://vinf.net Twitter @vinf_net