Home Lab Tour 2023 - VMware vSphere, vSAN, Proxmox, Docker, Unifi, Synology, MORE!

This is my home lab tour 2023, including the hardware, servers, networking, software, monitoring, notifications, and other changes made this year. Hopefully you guys will enjoy the technologies and applications I am using in the home lab in 2023.

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Github:

A bit of RGB to get started! - 0:00
Introduction to the evolution of my home lab - 0:27
A discussion of hardware and changes - 1:10
Overview of firewall upgrade this year - 1:23
Detailing the addition of Intel Optane storage to the home lab vSAN cluster - 1:40
Streamlined cabling this past year - 2:18
I have installed 2 light bars in the server rack - 2:42
No other major changes on the network side of things - 3:32
Thinking about 25 gig - 3:55
Overview of my 6 Supermicro hosts - 4:12
103 GHz, 766 GB memory, 31.84 TB of virtualization resources, 26 TB of Synology storage - 4:44
Overview of software changes - 5:02
Upgraded to VMware vSphere 8 and vSAN 8 - 5:12
Other hypervisors: Proxmox and Hyper-V standalone and clusters - 5:38
Also running 4 Docker hosts as virtual machines - 5:59
Pihole, Uptime-Kuma, Unifi network controller, arpwatch, Pialert, GestioIP, Mailrise, Traefik, Twingate - 6:13
Kubernetes distros in the lab - 6:48
3 Rancher controlled RKE clusters - 6:53
K3s cluster and 3-node Microk8s cluster - 7:29
Added a VMware Tanzu cluster in the home lab - 7:43
Monitoring in the home lab in 2023 - 8:08
PRTG from Paessler for monitoring - 8:24
Other solutions in addition to PRTG - 9:08
VMware vRealize operations in the home lab - 9:21
Running Uptime-Kuma - 10:10
Prometheus and Grafana - 10:42
Talking about backups in the home lab - 10:52
The variety of backup solutions using in the home lab - 11:23
Mailrise for notification services - 12:14
RGB of my home lab server rack - 13:19

Home lab written specs:

Supermicro VMware Home lab:

[davechristoffersen]

That rack is a thing of beauty well done sir

[BrianThomas]

I like the light in the rack. I have one hanging over my rack. The only thing is the light switch. There's no manual light on switches in networking. Automate that devilish thing. 😅

[jimberry]

idea for a video: if you should happen to have a shutdown process for when you lose power I would love to see how you're handling that. Right now I have my NAS plugged into my UPS USB port but everything else just stays up. So if power stays out longer than the battery life I basically just go down. I'm not really sure of a solid method to handle that. I too run VMWare hosts. Great video!!

[bx]

Also, I noticed you are not running a loadbalancer? :) LETS

[chadmarkley]

Oh, and PRTG is fantastic. I have clients using paid licenses however their "100 monitor" free license is brilliant. I have that free version running at a bunch of clients. Super easy to setup and so powerful!

[g.s.]

can you make a video with the installation of vrealize or "aria". thx

[JasonsLabVideos]

Good video, one day ill snag a PA firewall to play with !! The 440 looks like a monster !!

[jeffnew]

Always enjoy your material, Brandon. My home lab has recently been christened a data center with the addition of a Dell R740 (Cascade Lake) and an R750 (Ice Lake), both replacing 12th Generation Dell machines. My vSAN cluster is now running Express Storage Architecture under ESXi 8 as well. I like the idea of rack lighting. Looking at that now with an eye toward mounting it in the rear of the cabinet. Have you played with VMware's Horizon VDI at all? It's what I do, with about 40, 000 mission critical (healthcare) desktop VMs running. Please consider doing a video on certificates for the home lab. What do you have Let's Encrypt certs for? What have you purchased longer life certs for, if anything? How have you automated the certificate renewal process? Thank you much!

[AndreMiguelLopes]

Hi Brandon, did you install a TPM 2.0 module on your X10SDV Motherboards ? And it worked fine ?

[rafaelcapucho]

have you tried PBS (Proxmox Backup Server)? I'm using it, I'm pretty satisfied, thanks!

[bx]

Palo Alto Container Firewall, DO IT!!! :)

[JudgeFredd]

Interested by the electricity bill....

[gabrielegaetanofronze]

Hey!
With my company Elemento we are about to launch our take on what a modern hypervisor should be. We call it AtomOS! We offer unrivalled hardware support and great scalability (e.g. adding new hosts simply requires to plug them to the right network). We are willing to release some beta licenses and we would be happy to share one or two to let you test it! If you do like the idea just tell!

[chadmarkley]

Curious, what is power usage for the entire rack on a monthly basis? My power is so stupid expensive it has really kept me from building out a nice home lab

[TayschrennSedai]

I'd add unbound into that. Otherwise it's pretty slick.

[youtubevideos]

How can you sit in the same room with this rack? It must be as loud as a jet engine, or not?

[Gwolfe]

Interested to hear how you navigate licensing for the VMware software in a home lab. I’ve wanted to explore more of VMware but can’t justify the prices for a hobby.

[njgtguy]

How do you deal with fan noise and and heat coming from that rack behind you? It seems your home lab space would be noisy and hot.

[ololoTROlololo]

Hi, please tell me, how much about electricity your home laboratory is burning per month?

P.S. Great video, and very interesting chanel

[bluebird]

how much $ someones need to put to have similar setup? 30k? 50k?