Skip to content

vBlog.nl

All about technology

Menu
  • Home
  • VMware Cloud Director
  • vSphere
  • Automation
    • PowerCLI
    • PowerShell
    • Terraform
  • NSX
  • Horizon DaaS
  • About Us
Menu

VMware based homelab

Posted on December 8, 2020

So today I will share with you some of my research I did for building a VMware based homelab.

I must confess I did not yet buy one. I am a bit hesitant because I know myself; Once I start i can’t stop and I am convinced my wife also has something to say about that.

But not let my doubt hold you back when you want to get your own homelab. So Let’s divi shall we?

Table of Contents

  • Why get a homelab?
  • Hardware
      • Pros and cons list
      • Pick a winner and go with it
  • Software
  • Licences
  • VMware based homelab, final thoughts

Why get a homelab?

Getting a homelab is not only a really cool thing to do but there can be some great benefits for you careers as well.
It gives you a play environment where you can test, automate and break stuff. You can learn from your mistakes without breaking stuff in production. It can also help you convince others in your company to deploy new features and products if you already have knowledge and knowhow about the product. In addition a homelab can also help you study for VMware exams.

Hardware

The hardware will form the bases of your VMware based homelab but first of all, sit back and think about what you want to do with your VMware based homelab. Buying the most expensive, biggest, best hardware money can buy does not make a lot of sense if you only want to host a couple of containers. Maybe you would be better of gettings a Raspberry PI in that case.

Now that we have established where we want to use the hardware for let’s see what is out there.

You can of course use your own PC and run VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion on it but if you really want to go all out here are some other options to consider

  1. Intel NUC
  2. “Rent” a bare-metal server from an Internet Service provider.
  3. Buy a second hand server on for instance ebay or any other second hand marketplace.
  4. Buy a new server
  5. Build your own white label server
  6. Get a 2018 Mac Mini which is fully supported and on the VMware HAL

There are more options out there but this is a nice starting point I think. So for me this was the point where I started googling the different options and looking for the pros and cons of these options.

Pros and cons list

ProCon
Intel NUC– Power consumption
– Lots of different CPU’s available
– Some say in the configuration
– Memory
– CPU
– Hard Drive
– Can be expensive
– Most of them have only 1 NIC
– Most of them can fit only 2 Hard Drives
– CPU’s are all laptop CPU’s so less powerful
Rent a bare metal server– A lot of flavours available
– No machines in your own home ( no noise, no high electric bills)
– Support on hardware from the ISP
– Possibility for hardware refresh
– Expensive
– No cool gear at home
Buy a second hand server– Cheaper than renting one
– Lot’s of options out there
– No need for space heaters anymore in your home office
– Electric bill can run quit high
– Dealing with hassling of prices, picking up the hardware, etc.
– They are rather big
Buy a new server– The world is your oyster, you can buy whatever you want
– Cool new gear is always good
– Expensive
– Dangerous, once you start you cannot stop
Build your own white label server– You have your own pick in hardware
– You can build compact systems
– Building something yourself
– Can be expensive
– Hardware maintenance can be a doozy if you buy from (a lot) different vendors
Mac Mini– One box containing everything you need
– Vendor support
– Runs ESXi out of the box
– Expensive, especially if you add more RAM or storage
– Not a lot of options available to pick from

Pick a winner and go with it

With this list in hand I decided that for me going for the Intel NUC is the best option. Therefore i started looking around which NUC to get. However I soon realized that one of the pros i mentioned was also a con; The choice is massive.

I ended up on this site which contains a lot of useful info on Intel NUC’s, especially the section on which NUC to get is very useful. I concluded that if I am getting a NUC the NUC8i5BEK is best for my needs.

The reason for this is that I want to be able to run 64 GB of RAM and have a nice CPU against affordable costs.

Software

Software is the second most important part of the build. Are you going to run ESXi only or are you going to be running a full SDDC stack (ESXi, vCenter, NSX and vSAN). For now I will stick with ESXi and vCenter so the NUC I favour should do nicely.

Keep in mind that the more software you want to run the more resources you need. For instance vCenter alone already uses 12 GB of RAM

If you want to add VRA or VRO and also run some additional VM’s or maybe mess around with Tanzu you need to make sure you pick the right resources.

Licences

The last part you need to be aware of of is licensing. ESXI comes in a free version so i you intend to run a single ESXi host with some VM’s you are all set. But if you want to run vCenter of other VMware products you need to have a valid license which can be expensive.

Of course there are programs out there that offer NRF licenses (not for resale) like the VMware vExpert program

VMware based homelab, final thoughts

So in conclusion there are a lot of considerations to make but whatever option you pick be aware of the addictive nature of building your own setup. Before you know it you have a whole cluster of hosts running with a vSAN, Cloud director or any other cool software stacks you can think of.

Useful links and information I gathered to pick the right option for my build (when it happens)

  • virten.net
  • virtuallyghetto.com
  • Intel NUC
  • virtualizationhowto.com
  • google.com

If you like this blog post have a look at some of my other posts here.

Loading

Share on Social Media
x facebook linkedin reddit emailwhatsapptelegram

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent articles

  • Workspace ONE Access services monitoring July 11, 2023
  • vCloud Director API – Couldn’t connect to cloud server with the provided session id May 24, 2023
  • Horizon DaaS – Maximum sessions exceeded May 9, 2023
  • VMware Cloud on AWS with FSx for NetApp ONTAP December 28, 2022
  • Workspace ONE Access – Change certificate December 22, 2022
  • UI themes for VMware Cloud Director 10.4.1 and later December 16, 2022
  • VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid December 15, 2022
  • Workspace One Access – Not logged in to server FQDN. Please invoke Save before Sync December 12, 2022
  • NSX Edge configuration has failed. 1G hugepage support required. December 7, 2022
  • Horizon DaaS – Unable to connect to Desktop November 24, 2022

Tags

Automation bootstrapping Container Service Extension Credential Manager Desktone.log ESXi EUC EXi GPU Horizon DaaS Instant-Clone Logging NSX nsx-t PowerCLI PowerShell Putty Raspberry PI SSL Tanzu Terraform update vcd-cli vCenter vCloud vCloud Availability vCloud Director VDI vGPU VMware VMworld vSAN vSphere vVols workspace one Zerto

VMware Cloud Provider Blog

  • Ransomware Recovery for Cloud Providers Using VMware Cloud Director Availability
    by Nikolay Patrikov on September 28, 2023 at 10:30 am

    According to multiple reports, one of the biggest challenges for organizations is being targeted by Ransomware attacks. It is now happening more frequently than ever, which leads to several complications such as re-infection during recovery, prolonged recovery period, etc.  One of the most efficient ways to counteract this is to implement an effective Disaster Recovery policy. It … Continued The post Ransomware Recovery for Cloud Providers Using VMware Cloud Director Availability appeared first on VMware Cloud Provider Blog.

  • Tanzu Mission Control Self-Managed Now Available for Cloud Services Providers and Sovereign Cloud Providers
    by Christopher Wong on September 28, 2023 at 10:00 am

    Tanzu Mission Control, VMware’s centralized Kubernetes management platform, is evolving quickly from its initial release in 2020 to adapt to industry trends and changing customer needs. As observed in the VMware State of Kubernetes 2023 report, over 50% of respondents indicated they wanted to leverage multiple clouds to reduce vendor dependency, while 42% wanted to … Continued The post Tanzu Mission Control Self-Managed Now Available for Cloud Services Providers and Sovereign Cloud Providers appeared first on VMware Cloud Provider Blog.

  • End of NSX Migration for VMware Cloud Director…! What Should I Know?
    by Jaikishan Tayal on September 26, 2023 at 5:03 pm

    In May 2023, VMware unveiled the 7th major release of the VMware NSX Migration for VMware Cloud Director 1.4.2 tool, introducing an extensive array of functionalities and elevating the tool’s capabilities to encompass a comprehensive set of features, facilitating the migration of VMware Cloud Director Networking from NSX for vSphere to VMware NSX (formerly known … Continued The post End of NSX Migration for VMware Cloud Director…! What Should I Know? appeared first on VMware Cloud Provider Blog.

  • Alternative Solutions for Unsupported Features in VMware NSX Migration for VMware Cloud Director…!
    by Jaikishan Tayal on September 26, 2023 at 4:30 pm

    The VMware NSX Migration tool for VMware Cloud Director has seen multiple updates aimed at improving its capabilities and keeping pace with the evolving nature of both VMware Cloud Director and VMware NSX releases. However, it’s worth mentioning that there are certain features that remain unsupported. This could be attributed to their intricate nature or … Continued The post Alternative Solutions for Unsupported Features in VMware NSX Migration for VMware Cloud Director…! appeared first on VMware Cloud Provider Blog.

  • Understanding vGPU functionality with VMware Cloud Director
    by Jaikishan Tayal on September 26, 2023 at 2:02 pm

    VMware Cloud Director (VCD) is a cloud management platform that enables service providers to offer multi-tenant cloud services to their customers. When it comes to using Virtual Graphics Processing Units (vGPUs) with VCD, here are the key details and advantages: VMware Cloud Director (VCD) with vGPU support offers advantages not only for virtual machines (VMs) … Continued The post Understanding vGPU functionality with VMware Cloud Director appeared first on VMware Cloud Provider Blog.

©2023 vBlog.nl | Design: Newspaperly WordPress Theme