A few years ago I had a couple old and slow Optiplex’s running Hyper-V, with Windows/Linux VM’s, doing things like NPS, AD, etc.
Had some old equipment collecting dust, so I’ve built out a decent homelab and am curious if anyone else has done the same, and if so what are they running on them for fun?
In my new “rack”:
- PowerEdge R430
- Running ProxMox, with a Windows VM (DC), and a Linux VM with Docker for Plex
- EqualLogic PS4100
- VM storage for both PowerEdge servers (10TB)
- Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 24 250w
- PowerEdge R720
- Running ProxMox, with some Linux VM’s, most utilizing Docker for Plex “assistance/automations” (ahem), NextCloud for phone photo backup and wife’s photography, and another DC as a failover of R430’s DC.
I don’t have any retired hardware from my current job, since I’m 100% cloud (and I don’t miss hardware one bit (well, except for the one time I found that I didn’t have any spare power cables for the homebrew PC)).
I have, however, converted my old QNAP NAS to TrueNAS, and it’s much better now.
On-prem infrastructure is way less fun than having a full cloud stack, how are you enjoying that, and are there any big snags you all have run into?
Currently in the process of doing the same at work, we mainly utilize file servers(already migrated to SharePoint), DC’s (in process of going full AAD, Endpoint Manager[intune], AutoPilot), and Print Servers (currently testing full cloud solution to replace). This would allow us to be “server less” and no on-prem infrastructure aside from switching/routing/firewalls, and we can segment our network completely since users won’t need to talk to anything on-prem anymore.
undefined> On-prem infrastructure is way less fun than having a full cloud stack, how are you enjoying that, and are there any big snags you all have run into?
There are people who do enjoy playing with hardware, and I’m not going to say they’re wrong, especially since I’m glad they’re around. But that’s not what I want to do for a living.
I think the biggest challenge I’ve seen is: with on-prem hardware, you can brick a server or a router, and have to go down to the machine room to reimage it from the console. With cloud infrastructure, it’s possible to not just brick, but destroy your entire machine room.
Having said that, I really like infrastructure-as-code. I’ve set up racks of hardware, and IaC is way more fun.
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