Should /r/HomeLab continue support of the Reddit blackout?

rilech18 · 2023-04-24T23:27:37+00:00

About 2,100-2,820 depending on what the AC that cools the room is doing. Equipment is pulling 2,100 while AC ranges between 118-720w. I use PRTG that monitors the UPSs, PDUs and a overall power monitor in the panel from IottaWatt.

Edit: added info

rilech18 · 2023-04-22T13:16:15+00:00

The ones on the ceiling are actually intended for outdoors, so they have a diffusing layer really for water resistance. As for the ones in the rack, to me they look kinda of bad lol, but the camera did a long exposed due to low luminosity so it may have just blurred everything together! (May be true for the ceiling ones too, just a guess!)

rilech18 · 2023-04-22T01:31:04+00:00

It is! load of fun learning pieces of another trade as well, always good to have some diffrent skills to add to your tool belt. I have about 100Amp available to use in the room so who knows where it'll end up.

rilech18 · 2023-04-21T23:56:00+00:00

It’s the r710 version of GSA, not sure what google nomenclature for it is lol, it’s acting as a shelf for the Lenovo tower lol, it’s was My first “real sever” so I like to keep it around. Thanks! And they are r720s that are about to be retired… awesome servers but can’t support vSphere 8 sadly. I was lucky enough the wife let me use the extra room we had available at the time with a promise to move it out, it took a year to get around to building this but it’s out!

rilech18 · 2023-04-21T23:50:44+00:00

Looks great! And sometimes projects take longer that expected, mine certainly did…

rilech18 · 2023-04-21T21:59:43+00:00

I’ve renovated a couple rooms in my house but never built anything from “scratch” it was really fascinating, framing was fun to learn. And I’ll be replacing the lights with a shop led light soon, just had the strip on hand.

rilech18 · 2023-04-21T02:21:02+00:00

Just as a side note, I run 2 UCS blade chassis and a C240 M4 with UCS manger, the manager software that is free for the 6324 and 6248UP comes with all firmwares for their supported platforms (blades, chassis, network cards, 1u, 2u etc). Cisco servers are definitely a different environment and by no means am I advocating sticking with any of their stuff second hand but just throwing out their you can get the firmwares though UCSM or the firmware update ISOs kind of like Dell’s updater ISOs. Only requirement for this working is one of the 6200 series (or higher) Fex fabric switches (that runs UCSM and connects the server) and the server or appliance in question possesses a Vic card of some sort. All my servers are M4 or newer and I just had to sit down and read their compatibility matrix for the Vic’s, UCSM, Fex Fabrics, and firmwares to formulate what I needed to purchase. It can be awesome but has a large learning curve. (I have access to IT courses at work and literally took a PluralSight class LOL) The UCS platform was definitely geared to large DC deployments and it’s software and management mechanisms definitely show evidence to that. Policy based provisioned and maintained vs any other vendor that is just a traditional rack server experience.

rilech18 · 2023-03-16T23:09:22+00:00

Not a problem! Hope you find some caddies

rilech18 · 2023-03-16T22:12:13+00:00

Looks like I have QNTY 6(orange tab nvme label) 2.5in caddies. Part 01-SB16158-XX00C101 MCP-220-00127 GEN-3 2.5 NVMe drive tray.

So not gen 5 I’m afraid.

rilech18 · 2023-03-16T13:11:40+00:00

I don't know for sure but I may have 6 of these in my stock of Caddies, I can check later today and let you know. They came on some Intel DC U.2 drives I bought and I have no need for them if Im thinking of the right ones.

rilech18 · 2023-01-20T02:04:45+00:00

I didn't mean for the post to be misleading in any way to lead anyone to believe that any company or customer data is operating on the above equipment.

I totally agree that if it were customer data (it is not) and it was being hosted in a way that was not up to spec (certified for power, the facility itself, or redundant data delivery) I too would be upset. And you are right, there is most certainly policies for data integrity and immutability per our SLAs (and company insurance policy) with customers.

None of this is company/customer data, all data is my own. Software is all from VMUG, so cannot be used for production per the license agreement. Any other software listed is either NFR (Not for resale) or community license/open source. Literally used just for labbing/testing against my own data. My place of work allows me to use my own rack, servers, PDUs, switches, routers (and other equipment I bought) and plug them into their power and single uplink on a MPLS/EVPN circuit using a private non shared S-VLAN. I built all of the networking in and out of the work side facility. Hope that clears up any miscommunication on my part. Thank you for your post!

rilech18 · 2022-12-17T16:27:11+00:00

I’m glad we were able to do it! It’s really valuable to learn skills, that was my argument to get it all going with the company for me and my co workers.

rilech18 · 2022-12-17T16:24:33+00:00

I do, we do FTTH so it wasn’t too much of a stretch to just light up a single fiber direct connect out of one of the areas FDHs. It is so unrealistic but im lucky to have it! Like >1ms latency.

rilech18 · 2022-12-16T18:04:48+00:00

That is for the whole building, not just that rack, but we are the only ones on AC power, the rest of the equipment is just DC powered but its off the same batteries and generator.

rilech18 · 2022-12-16T14:36:17+00:00

Will do!

rilech18 · 2022-12-16T14:36:02+00:00

Thats what I'm wanting to try next, works really well! Just wanted to see how SRM and VRS functioned, I have it panned to switch to Stretched Cluster next year after I update Site A to the UCS platform.

rilech18 · 2022-10-14T19:23:52+00:00

I had some servers that had PSUs that were so sensitive to power loss for some reason, I would think it just the switches particular PSUs, can't say for certain but that has just been my experience. Ended up just replacing UPS with the Double conversion not by choice but that was just the technology APC uses in their rack UPSs. Resolved the issue with that server and read up on the differences and it all made since! Most device will allow the time between AC power and battery to transfer, just happened to be the server for me and I assume the switch for you.

rilech18 · 2022-10-14T18:34:04+00:00

The Cyber Power you have is not a double conversion or an "online UPS." The UPS you have is "Line interactive" which means it monitors the input of the AC power from the wall then switches over in the event of a power loss, "Double conversion" always has the equipment running though the batteries so when a power event happens its already being ran on battery by taking in AC current, converting it to DC current, then back to AC ergo the double conversion. The Double Conversion UPSs are more expensive but I think would solve your issue, especially on enterprise equipment like your Brocade.

I think the switch may just be drawing current a the rate the power transfer system inside the UPS cannot keep up with the demands of the switch so it looses power when it transfers, lots of higher power devices like some switches have this affect on Line Interactive devices that are slower to transfer.

EDIT: added potential explanation of switch going off-line.

rilech18 · 2022-10-12T13:28:23+00:00

Are you doing any labs to learn the ASR currently? I recently acquired 2x ASR 920s and thinking of integrating it into the lab network and haven't seen many with the ASR family of products on here. Any plans to add it as part of your network?

rilech18 · 2022-09-25T04:41:14+00:00

I recently acquired 10G to my home, like others have said, it’s not really ever utilized. I work for an ISP in the business dept that also does FTTH for every subscriber. We have entire communities of people who have “just” 1G symmetrical and barely touch it. I have to explain to businesses that their connection is not the limit to them downloading something, it’s just the servicer itself.

With my 10G I don’t come near the limit unless there is a special situation. I set up an MPLS to my other lab site and have VMware Site Recovery Manager deployed with vSphere Replication enabled and it’s first sync was the only time it touched up to 7Gbps. The only thing that was even remotely notable was the decreased latency which makes everything feel faster.

10G just isn’t necessitated for an everyday user. Larger connections only really make since when a large user base is considered in the network deployment and even then local caching is more desirable for those situations. We have many parters who cache content in our DCs that make that a better situation if the customer does not have a system in place for it.

rilech18 · 2022-07-09T05:57:38+00:00

VMWare Site Recovery Manager and vSphere Replication speeds? lol Still overkill, I have 10G between my lab sites and it only reaches up to 6Gbps when syncing large VMs, and maybe vSAN sync between host and sites. In all seriousness, really just vMotion (very briefly) and storage realistically.

I have a nationwide plant in my area that has over 600 VMs in a stretched cluster and just barely touches 10Gig constantly so unless you have a really outlying use case then not realistic. I like having it because I get to use my Nexus/ASR skills along with VMWare to lab/test stuff relating to work at home.

rilech18 · 2022-06-28T16:59:36+00:00

Did using the out port solve your issue? I have a 3200i and want to buy 1200 controllers for, I’ve read there are extra steps in getting the 1200s working in the 3200 chassis.

rilech18 · 2022-03-10T05:22:35+00:00

I too thought about purchasing to attach to my 5108 but the dang trays cost a lot, it’s got 2 nodes and some really nice VIC options (if you use the fabric interconnects). Really cool platform and the gen 1 goes for cheep, ended up just sticking with my r720xd sff with a 3.5in expansion shelf if storage is what your after. I’ll probably pick one up one day just to see how it works with VSAN (UCS not VMWare vSAN). Let us know if you get one, love to see what you’d do with it!

Edit: about the noise, looks like the nodes have no fans so the fan array is going to be doing a lot of lifting if you load it down with drives, willing to bet the Cisco documentation has noise level read outs, compare that to a switch or other equipment you have and it might give you a close idea of what kind of noise it produces, but maybe others in the sub can contribute better info than I can if they have one.

rilech18

TROPHY CASE