Show Us Your Racks

agw_01 · 9 Feb 2016 at 23:13

Here's my little lab at home. It's part of my live network but I also use it for testing/lab work.

Kit list;

Cisco 887
Cisco ASA 5505
Cisco 3750-48PS
Cisco 2950-24T
Synology DS212J
APC BackUPS PRO900 UPS
And a few 120mm fans thrown in to keep it all cool

Bit of a breakdown for anyone who's interested...

The 887 terminates my FTTC VDSL service and runs in bridge mode, connected to the ASA. The ASA sits between the 887 and the 3750.

The 3750 does my layer 3/VLAN routing for the various VLANs in my network, as well as being the default gateway for each subnet. There's a seperate VLAN for wireless with access lists and time restrictions to limit where and what our children can do (like I said, it's a bit of a lab).

There are a couple of Cisco 1242 access points in full IOS mode dotted about the house. We migrated from a Cisco WLC and LWAPs to Meraki before I left my previous job so I took (with permission) a few 1242s... I wonder if they still have the 4400 WLC.

The 2950 has a trunked port channel between it and the 3750, where the 2 gig ports connect to the 2 laptops in the rack. These run various virtual machines (AD/SQL/Exchange). I'll shortly be replacing the laptops with some SFF PCs to give a bit more capacity. I'd like to run Cisco CUCM as well. I'm using directed broadcasts to be able to WOL the machines from other subnets.

The Synology is just a basic file/time server for the network. My girlfriend has a DLNA radio so IGMP multicasting is enabled on the 3750 to allow her to stream across VLANs from the Synology.

I have a Cisco 2801 with FXO card that I'm hoping to put into service as a voice gateway once I have CUCM running. I have a mix of Cisco 7911 and 7941 phones to play with. I'm also waiting on an ASA5510 to replace the 5505. I also want to segment a bunch of ports on the 2950 to use as a DMZ with a connection back to the ASA.

All in a cheap cabinet that's buckling under the weight!

It's been fun to set-up and use, but it isn't half overkill for a 2+2 household

bremen1874 · 9 Feb 2016 at 23:38

divuk83 said:
Not much compared to most on here.
HP Procurve 1410-16G
Synology DS215j with 2x WD 2tb Red's
Ubiquiti Unifi LR AP (Not pictured)
Dodgy Plusnet router + Openreach Modem (not pictured)

Need to run a load more cat6 as I would prefer not to use Wifi for most things. Discovering the ground floor was concrete and not floorboards in the new house has stopped progress for now.

Dave

That looks like a lot of effort and cost for a very small gain. Are there more than the two cables visible connected to that patch panel?

divuk83 · 13 Feb 2016 at 20:31

Currently the only 2 patch panel connections are the openreach modem (by the phone socket at the other side of the house) and the Unifi AP (in the hallway). I really need to sort our running a load more cable, but what I thought was going to be an easy job of running cables under the floor has been made more complicated as it's not floorboards, it's concrete. For now everything is running on wifi, which while not ideal means at least stuff works. I need at least 4 sockets behind the TV, probably 6 and I need to run several upstairs. The computer room is next on my to do list once we have moved my daughter out of it and into a bigger room that I have just decorated for her.

Having a cab in the utility room is actually the easiest way of doing it, I don't like having routers etc sat about in the house and it's a good home for the NAS as it's out of the way and I get the benefit of the full network speed when accessing it remotely. I think the cab and patch panel set me back about £65, everything else came from my last house.

Dave

Furton · 15 Feb 2016 at 22:54

divuk83 said:
Not much compared to most on here.
HP Procurve 1410-16G
Synology DS215j with 2x WD 2tb Red's
Ubiquiti Unifi LR AP (Not pictured)
Dodgy Plusnet router + Openreach Modem (not pictured)

Need to run a load more cat6 as I would prefer not to use Wifi for most things. Discovering the ground floor was concrete and not floorboards in the new house has stopped progress for now.

Dave

Very neat, what cabinet is that?

Boycie · 16 Feb 2016 at 16:33

Love this thread so here's my contribution. Work rack with a few rear end shots

Excuse the potato camera.

nutcase · 16 Feb 2016 at 18:54

Boycie said:
Love this thread so here's my contribution. Work rack with a few rear end shots Excuse the potato camera.

How long does that UPS last running that lot?

Boycie · 16 Feb 2016 at 19:35

nutcase_1uk said:
How long does that UPS last running that lot?

12 minutes but the generator kicks in after 9 seconds :cool:

nutcase · 16 Feb 2016 at 20:51

Fair do's

Just seems a lot to hang off a 1500 (?) UPS

Ricimer · 16 Feb 2016 at 23:20

nutcase_1uk said:
Fair do's Just seems a lot to hang off a 1500 (?) UPS

It could be the 2U 2200VA

Boycie · 17 Feb 2016 at 08:02

Its a 3000VA, SMT3000RMI2U. Runs at about 46% load with everything on in that rack.

On Holiday · 17 Feb 2016 at 16:50

Boycie said:
Just a little something i've been working on today at our colo site.

That looks familiar :cool:

divuk83 · 17 Feb 2016 at 19:44

Furton said:
Very neat, what cabinet is that?

It's a "Comms2Go" one from the rainforest store.

Dave

nutcase · 17 Feb 2016 at 20:54

Boycie said:
Its a 3000VA, SMT3000RMI2U. Runs at about 46% load with everything on in that rack.

Ah didn't realise they went that high but still 2U.

drew · 2 Mar 2016 at 21:26

Here's the start of the networking project at my new factory, it is roughly 15,000 sq ft with 2,000 sq ft of offices.

I am having a small room built that will house a rack for our server, switch etc. I've decided to do it myself as it was quoted 4k to cable and terminate 48 points.

I'll post some more updates as i have them.

Any advice is welcome!

bremen1874 · 2 Mar 2016 at 22:42

What's the ventilation going to be like?

Akagi · 2 Mar 2016 at 22:45

I'd love to show you the servers at work, but I'm pretty sure I could be dismissed for taking pictures in there, let alone posting them online...

drew · 2 Mar 2016 at 22:47

I can vent into a very large roof void through the suspended ceiling short term, I plan to have a local air con company come and look at pricing up a small unit to go in, the wall to the left is the warehouse so can potentially run an inverter through the wall into there.

bremen1874 · 2 Mar 2016 at 22:53

If you're thinking of air con in the future I'd get a suitable dedicated mains circuit installed now while everything is apart.

drew · 2 Mar 2016 at 23:15

I've put in a radial circuit 4mm cable to a 32amp MCB on the distribution board already for the server bits, but good idea, i'll get another feed pulled tomorrow.

Thanks

nutcase · 3 Mar 2016 at 08:39

Don't forget to consider what happens when the aircon fails - budget for a second aircon (seperate feed again?) - environmental monitoring?

Slippery slope - you need to decide what levels of redundancy you need etc. We have a single aircon in ours and it flakes out once every 18 months or so. When the temp reaches a certain point all the non-urgent stuff shuts down, and the most urgent stuff in hosted on a Dell server with "Fresh Air Cooling" which is rated continuously at 40c. Even when the aircon has failed we've not hit that temp before someone has reset it, or just opened the door!