If you could build the perfect home LAN...
Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 5:09 pm
Like I said in previous posts, I'm gunning for my Cisco and VMWare certifications, and it got me thinking. In order to kill two birds with one stone, why not build a lab that also serves as the home LAN?
This wouldn't be easy in an apartment (unless your landlord doesn't mind you pulling cable thru the walls), but in a typical house environment, this could be really awesome.
I've been daydreaming about setting up Cisco and VMWare environment. Redundant vSphere Servers (Dual CPUs, as much RAM as it'll take, nVidia Titan GPUs, Multiple 1 GigE NICs, iSCSI controllers), with redundant SANs (with as many Terabytes I as I can cram in there), 1GigE ethernet everywhere (within the server closet, and walljacks in every room), Twin Catalyst 2960-Xs (48 1GigE ports, 2 10GigE trunk ports in PagP each, maybe HSRP on the L3 ports), one or two 802.11ac APs, Hopefully VSDL2 or FiOS, and at least 1 HTPC. The thought behind this is obviously practice for the exams, but also, let's say I get remarried again and we have kids. By using the VMWare environment, everybody's laptop or computer could be running their own private environment, I can centralize anti-virus and system updates, and with GPU sharing, several members of the household could be playing games, streaming movies, or even doing 3D modelling simultaneously. Everything would be backed up to the redundant SANs, so sharing music, movies, and games shouldn't be an issue, and everyone would be on their own private VLAN, thanks to the Cisco 1000V, so even if somebody got a virus, it would be contained to just their private VLAN.
What kind of LAN would you folks build, if money was no object?
This wouldn't be easy in an apartment (unless your landlord doesn't mind you pulling cable thru the walls), but in a typical house environment, this could be really awesome.
I've been daydreaming about setting up Cisco and VMWare environment. Redundant vSphere Servers (Dual CPUs, as much RAM as it'll take, nVidia Titan GPUs, Multiple 1 GigE NICs, iSCSI controllers), with redundant SANs (with as many Terabytes I as I can cram in there), 1GigE ethernet everywhere (within the server closet, and walljacks in every room), Twin Catalyst 2960-Xs (48 1GigE ports, 2 10GigE trunk ports in PagP each, maybe HSRP on the L3 ports), one or two 802.11ac APs, Hopefully VSDL2 or FiOS, and at least 1 HTPC. The thought behind this is obviously practice for the exams, but also, let's say I get remarried again and we have kids. By using the VMWare environment, everybody's laptop or computer could be running their own private environment, I can centralize anti-virus and system updates, and with GPU sharing, several members of the household could be playing games, streaming movies, or even doing 3D modelling simultaneously. Everything would be backed up to the redundant SANs, so sharing music, movies, and games shouldn't be an issue, and everyone would be on their own private VLAN, thanks to the Cisco 1000V, so even if somebody got a virus, it would be contained to just their private VLAN.
What kind of LAN would you folks build, if money was no object?