July 2, 2015 at 8:14 am
So, for those of you with a home lab, how did you set it up? I'm not worried about the nitty-gritty of what virtualization solution you used, or what hardware it's on, but more the general network configuration.
I know for some features, you need a domain. Domains need DNS. Managing servers on a domain is much easier from a domain-joined workstation.
So, do you have just one network for your home, with anything related to the lab domain joined, while other PCs (the wife, the kids) being non-members?
Do you have a dedicated subnet / network just for the lab?
Do you have a dedicated lab workstation, with your personal "fun and games" PC separate?
I'm looking to revamp my home network and re-setup my home lab in the coming weeks, and I'm just looking for ideas from others. I might go with all the PCs / servers on one network, and all of them (including the wifes' PC!) domain-joined, just to simplify things. Part of me, though, prefers the idea of keeping my "work" systems separate from my "play" systems...
Thoughts?
July 2, 2015 at 11:20 am
I stopped maintaining the home lab and moved it all to Azure. So much easier to get everything I need fast, no upgrades necessary, nothing to maintain. The only pain there is if I want to do clustering testing, I have to build that out. But there are some good PowerShell scripts to do that too. I'm not paying for electricity or anything. It works great.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
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July 2, 2015 at 11:59 am
I've been using VirtualBox. You can simulate a networked environment by having multiple virtual machines running with virtual networking between them, one can be setup as the domain controller, and another hosting SQL Server. The entire infrastructure can be simulated, limited by your available memory and disk storage. You'll probably need maybe 16 GB minimum.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
July 2, 2015 at 12:28 pm
Like Eric, i use virtualbox;
i've got two laptops, my original with 8 gig of ram, which does pretty good with two virtuals running,and slows down beyond that;
i've got an Origin PC laptop with boatloads of horsepower, pure SSD everywhere, and 32 gig of ram; that thing screams, and i haven't really stressed it enough yet. I've been putting together a clustered example on that one. i spent an obscene amount on it, but i wanted the latest and greatest.
i slowed it down a bit by encrypting all my drives, but it's still screaming fast compared to my productions servers with SAN disks ,or anything i had personally.
Lowell
July 3, 2015 at 6:38 am
OK, so it sounds like (with the exception of Grant the Azure Dude :w00t:) everyone seems to stand up VMs and a domain just for the VMs.
A quick run-down of the hardware I've currently got, and how it's configured:
Server1 -> MS HyperV Server 2012R2, ~8GB RAM, Core2 quad, ~1TB HD
Server2 -> MS HyperV Server 2012R2, ~16GB RAM, Xeon quad core, ~1TB HD
Server3 -> FreeNAS stable, ~8GB RAM, Core i5, ~2TB HD (2x 2TB in RAID-1)
Laptop -> Win8.1 Pro, Core i5, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD + 500GB HD
Desktop -> Win8.1 Pro, Core i7, 16GB RAM, 256GB M.2 + 4TB HD
My current setup is a pair of Domain Controller VMs, one on each HyperV box, then I spin up VMs as needed. BUT to manage the Hyper-Vs easily (because they're domain joined so features like Live migration and replication of VMs work) I need to either domain join one of my other PCs or add a VM to RDP into.
The desktop is used mostly for surfing and gaming, the laptop is kind of a "catch-all" and is currently domain-joined.
Was mostly wondering how others would go about setting things up...
July 3, 2015 at 7:02 am
:alien:
<singing> One of these things is not like the others... </singing>
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
July 3, 2015 at 7:25 am
Grant Fritchey (7/3/2015)
:alien:<singing> One of these things is not like the others... </singing>
HEY!
I was going to use Server 2012 for the NAS, but it *really* didn't like the consumer-grade motherboard and wouldn't even install!
July 13, 2015 at 6:31 am
I have a HP Microserver, with ESXi installed then a few VMs (domain controller on Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2014 on Windows Server 2012 R2 core, Ubuntu Core media centre and one or two others that occasionally appear).
It does mean that my CPU is limited (AMD Turion II 1.5 Ghz), but I have reasonably fast disks and haven't really come across any issues.
My "games" machine is completely separate and in need of an upgrade đŸ™‚
July 13, 2015 at 6:37 am
Grant Fritchey (7/3/2015)
:alien:<singing> One of these things is not like the others... </singing>
I've got the Foo Fighters in my head now/
How to post a question to get the most help http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537
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