So I have had my lab hosts for about a year. I have to say that they have done pretty well. Because of the cost I configured these hosts with 16GB of RAM each. At the time I built them, 8GB sticks of RAM were about $250 a piece, which was a little bit out of my price range. I recently found some 8GB Kingston memory that wasn’t going to break the bank, and give me the ability to do…
It is not uncommon for small environments to leverage the included SQL Server Express database that is included with VMware vCenter Server. When a vCenter Server is installed in this manner, many administrators have noticed that when the vCenter Server is rebooted, from time to time, the service isn’t available upon restart. This is because the vCenter Service requires the SQL Server to be online before it can start. This issue can be resolved by making the vCenter Service dependent…
I’ve had the lab running for a couple of weeks and I have made a few observations in relation to the configuration of each host. As mentioned in my previous post Home Lab Hosts – Just in time for vSphere 5, I used server class motherboards, requiring ECC RAM, with iKVM, etc. Here are a couple things I noticed that stood out: The CPUs I chose the Intel Xeon E3-1230 processors because I wanted to be able to have quad…
I’ve been looking at what type of hardware for a home lab for quite a while. Several people have setup some pretty decent/usable home labs… Here are a few to point out: Kendrick Coleman – vSphere Home Lab – “The Green Machines” Jeramiah Dooley – VMware vSphere Home Lab: Keeping up with the Joneses Tommy Trogden – The VMware Home Lab Duncan Epping – My Homelab Simon Seagrave – VMware ESX(i) Home Lab; Why, What and How? Considerations when building…