It’s CCIE Security lab server build time!
My new server arrived on Thursday. I had been toying with what to get for a couple of weeks and found what I thought was a bargain on eBay.
For the reasonable sum of £649.99, I picked up a dual hexa core Xeon Dell Precision T5500. It’s got a pair of X5675 Xeon processors, so it gives me a total of 24 logical CPUs and came with a nice 48Gb of memory.
The best part was that the seller had two of them, and then upped the price by £350!
It just goes to show that timing is everything! I am very pleased that not waiting a day or two saved me a stack of cash.
It was a barebones setup, so I added a 120Gb SSD to hold the OS, and a 750Gb SATA drive. It took some time to get the second HD running, as that channel was disabled in the BIOS. Took me a little while to figure this out, but now it’s running nicely. I was helped by one of my boys. He put the DVD in the drive and plugged cables in for me.
The best thing about it is that compared to my old server (which you can see in the background on the first picture), that I used for my R&S, it’s nearly completely silent. My wife will be much happier about this, and it makes studying easier, as it’s hard to concentrate when it sounds like you are sitting in a wind tunnel (or a server room).
The Security lab server is loaded with ESXi 6.0, and the vSphere server appliance is running on it. Being a Mac user it’s either using that or having to run a Windows VM for management.
I have migrated UNL from VMWare Fusion on my Mac to the new server and upped the CPU count to 12, and the memory from 8GB (the limit in Fusion) to 40GB, which, by my calculation, is the minimum memory requirement for the CCIE Security lab.
I think somethings will have to run as ESXi hosts, namely the ISE, but the benefit of the full VMWare solution is the enhanced memory handling – such as over commitment. That said, the first DIMM slots have 4GB sticks in them, so I could upgrade these to 8GB sticks and gain and additional 24GB or memory, taking the total up to 72GB. The system can take a maximum of 96GB. So there is a lot of scope for expansion.
I think I will need to add an ethernet card, probably a quad one, as I will need to link into to components such as the Access Point, ISE etc. But this bit can wait a few months.It’s looking good so far. The books have started to arrive, and I am formulating my study plan.
I am quite pleased with my new security lab server!
I also managed to clear up the garage so we can fit a chest freezer in tomorrow. It’s going to be a busy weekend!
Maybe a AWS Server is a good option to study to CCIE? After the lab can be powerOff and don't waste money.
Hi Marcus
It's a good idea, but I think it could still get very expensive. Though after calculations, probably not a huge amount more!
It would need a lot of memory, and vCPUs, so you are looking at something around $1.5 – $1.7 per hour. Say you use if for two hours a day each month, thats 60 hours, it works out to be about $100. Add on the storage (60Gb) and the price is $107 pm. Over the period of studying, anywhere from a year to two years, this would be in the region of $1284 – $2568.
I guess I have already reached the lower end of the cost already!
Please advise if it is ok to buy below for CCIE Sec V5 Lab and CCIE SP v4 Lab
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Proliant-DL360-G7-Server-2x-X5650-2-66GHz-12-Cores-144GB-RAM-4x-300GB-HDD-/322217850266?hash=item4b05ae359a:g:d3IAAOSwIgNXpQuE&autorefresh=true
Looks good, can't check the full specs, but make sure the country supports virtualization. Good amount of memory and cores, so if support VT-x then you should be good.
Looks good, can't check the full specs, but make sure the country supports virtualization. Good amount of memory and cores, so if support VT-x then you should be good.
Thanks a lot dear
How do I get the FREE 28-PAGE GUIDE TO SETTING UP UNETLAB after I join the mailing list?
You should get a welcome email, in there us a link to download
Hi Stuart,
I’m looking at a Dell Precision T5500 for my CCIE lab as well. Did you have any issues installing VMware ESXi 6.0 as some sources on the internet give mixed feedback?
Thanks
I dint remember having any issues, apart from choosing an unsupported quad-port nic – so check the HCL. Other than that, its been fine and stable for a year…
Hello, congrats and thanks for putting this information up here. I am preparing for my ccie exam and would love to share more experience and resource from you. I have a dell T5600 just arrived from ebay. Planning to equip with 128GB Ssd and it also came with 500GB SAS. I need Security images if you know where I can download or purchase and advice on materials you are using. You can reply me [email protected]
Regards
The spec looks good, but there won’t be ant sharing of images on this site.