Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/12/servers_and_sofas/
Clash of the Titans: Which of you has the GREATEST HOME LAB?
And is it in the cellar, the attic ... or the cloud?
Posted in Data Centre, 12th February 2013 10:00 GMT
SaaS data loss: The problem you didn’t know you had
Last week's article about home labs and their career-enhancing powers [1] produced some interesting comments from readers about their home labs.
That got us thinking: in the spirit of our infamous Ventblockers [2] series, in which readers sent in gut-wrenching photos of filth-laden IT kit, what about a servers'n'sofas challenge to show off the best home labs?
We're optimistic there are some good ones out there.
Commentard “dogged” boasted of his:
“Two HP boxes, a Mini running two debian VMs and a Mediasmart 495 (hardware hacked for decent chip and 8GB of RAM) running Windows Server 2012 with one extra 2012 VM for exchange and SQL.”
An anonymous coward claimed to have:
“[A] fully populated 47u server, with network aware ups, terminal server, kvm with remote links and a raft of servers, each running different flavours of unix natively … and a LTO drive with carousel mechanism.”
Christian Berger's home features:
“[A] Stratum 1 NTP [network time protocol] server, not because I'd need it on the job, but because I'd like to have the precise time. I find it cool that the computer which does my video recordings knows the time with an uncertainty of a microsecond. It's something I care about.”
Others get by with a hefty laptop, loaded with RAM and virtual machines a-plenty.
To play the servers'n'sofas challenge send photos of your home labs here [3], accompanied by full specs of course. We'll publish the best of them. Or use that link to tell us why the whole idea of a home lab is wrong in these cloudy days. Then send screenshots and full details of your cloud rig, or at least its management console, so your Reg-reading brethren can coo with awe at your virtual might.
There might even be a [virtual] Reg goodie bag in it for you, though such a paltry reward would of course pale into insignificance alongside the chance to have one's name inscribed forever in the Register home lab hall of fame. ®