Preparing the rebuild of my home lab!

Lot’s of time passed since my last posting. But now I will continue blogging about my home lab. Some months ago I moved my neccessary systems to a HP MicroServer, because the running costs of a real server are enormous! After I finished setup my new home network, I decided to change the entire networking in my home lab. Until now I run the same home network subnet (192.168.x.x) for all systems. That’s not a real enterprise environment. For my home use here at my desk it’s good enough, but not for my home lab in the cellar! Today I started configuring a classic multi layered network. I’m running a HP ProCurve 5406zl modular switch as my network core. This core is connected to my home network in the first floor and to a pair of HP ProCurve 3500yl switches. The two switches represent a typical distribution layer. All connection to the core switch are L3 based. I’m running a linux router on my HP MicroServer with a RIP daemon. The linux router is my default gateway in my home network and thanks to RIP it knows all routes to the IP subnets in my home lab. I prefer OSPF, but I have no premium license for the HP ProCurve switches. That’s why I’m using RIP. It’s doing a well job, too.

Next step is the reassembly of my HP rack. I planned to unify the blade server environment and to create a full virtualized lab or should I say a cloud enabled home lab? 😉