ESXi home setup for Cheap

I was looking to build a cheap home system to run ESXi v3.5.

I was looking to build a system with a dual-core processor, 4GB of RAM and a 500GB drive. I was also wanting to have a very small case and a system with low electrical consumption.

AMD is selling the cheapest processors for dual-core systems and all of their processors in this range are 64bit compatible. They also have lower power draws than the Intels.
Drawback to the AMD system is that you have to add a NIC and SATA card as ESXi does not support the ones on the motherboard - unless you purchase a more expensive board. To save money I chose to purchase the cheaper motherboard and add the components as it was less expensive than the supported board with integrated components.

Here are the specifications I settled on:
ASUS M2N-MX SE PLUS - $46.99 (newegg) AMDA64 X2 5000+ 2.6G - $59.50 (newegg)
2GX2KST KVR800D2K2/4GR RT - $68.49 (newegg)
NIC INTELPWLA8391GTBLK - $24.99 (newegg)
LITE-ONDH-16D3P-08 - $17.99 (newegg)
HD 500GHITC 7K 16M HDP725050GLA360 - $64.99 (newegg)
CASE APEVIA(ASP)X-QPACK-NW-BK/420 - $64.99 (newegg)
Adaptec Serial ATA RAID 1210SA - $19.99 (e-bay)

Total Price with Shipping: $409.39

SmartPhone replacement for Pager

Here is a great little program that will allow you to use your Windows Mobile SmartPhone as a replacement to a pager.

http://www.watchflag.com

It will "watch" for both e-mail and SMS messages - then it has rules based alerts that can be configured for both the subject and message body.

ESX on Dell Optiplex 755

In my test environment I am going to use Dell Optiplex 755 machine(s) in place of our normal rack servers. This is for cost reasons as we lease Dell 755 computers and I can use a few of our spare units for this test lab.

1. The NIC that is in the Optiplex desktops does NOT work with ESX/ESXi
   There are several options but the one that seems to be the best is the Intel Pro 1000 series. For this I needed the low profile option as our machines are the SFF model and only support low profile cards. (Intel Pro/1000 GT #PWLA8391GTLBL) $38
2. I increased the interal drive to a Hitachi 500GB drive (Hitachi #P7K500) $72
3. RAM is a huge factor for Virtualization so I added 4GB and can go to 8GB if necessary
   (Kingston 240 pin DDR2) $87

I did encounter a few bumps along the way:

• Processor - you need to have a processor that can run 64bit. Initially my 755 shipped with a E4600 dual-core processor. I enabled VT in the BIOS but it would not run 64bit VMs. This is because all "E" series processor's do not support 64bit - you need to have a "Q" series processor
  Here is a link from Intel that will allow a comparison of any processor and the options that each will support:
  http://compare.intel.com/PCC/intro.aspx
  select "Intel Desktop"
• You can use the AMD processors if your box supports them as all of the new AMD processors support 64-bit

I opted to move to a quad-core processor as the costs have decreased:
Q6600 (Quad-Core 2.4GHz) $245

There are a few steps to be taken to get ESX/ESXi to install on a desktop machine. Here are the link that I got this information from:
http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3.5/Whiteboxes_SATA_Controllers_for_ESX_3.5_3i.htm
This link gives a good breakdown of what motherboards/machines ESX can run on

http://x220.minasi.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=27913
This link has the setup to get ESX/ESXi to install

Pre-install:
* Go into the Bios and change the SATA operation to "Legacy"
* Enable Virtualization and VT for Direct I/O
* Disable NIC, the NIC on the mobo will not work

VMWare ESX Test/Dev Setup

I am going to setup a VMWare test environment in order to do both development testing with VMWare and to be able to bring online a "copy" of our production environment.

This test lab will be composed of older servers that have been obsoleted as well as some powerful desktop units.

The goal of this is to be able to bring online VMs that are both 32bit and 64bit - restores from the vRangerPro backup and new VMs. Also, bring online different test iSCSI appliances for testing.

Lastly, in the environment be able to bring in a Backup-Exec v11 and v12 setup to test restorations of our backup to disk and tape situations.

1st Post

Here I am - guess it is time to get with the technology and start my own blog.

Here is where I am going to post random thoughts about technology and anything else that crosses my mind.

Stay tuned - more to come!