The best way to get started with server virtualization is by using VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion to run a Windows Server VM in the same way that you would run any other application. You can then use the same tools for managing your Hyper-V host and VMs as you do for managing physical servers.
The most popular hypervisor on the market today is Microsoft Hyper-V, and with good reason: it’s free and included with every edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Ultimate, Enterprise, and Professional.
I’m going to show you how to set up a home lab environment with two physical hosts running Hyper-V and two VMs running Windows Server 2008 R2 (not Hyper-V!).
Server For Vmware Home Lab
VMware home lab is a great way to learn vSphere, but it is not as easy as you think. You need to build a VMware ESXi home lab, and it requires you to buy a bunch of hardware.
ESXi Home Lab Network Setup
In this section, we’ll talk about how to set up network connectivity between each host
The VMware vSphere Hypervisor is the foundation for VMware vSphere. It’s used to run virtual machines and provides a full software-defined data center. In this article, you’ll learn about the different hardware requirements for installing ESXi and how to use it in your home lab.
The minimum hardware requirements for ESXi are:
1 CPU (Intel Xeon E5 or later)
8 GB RAM (12 GB recommended)
1 Gigabit Ethernet NIC (supporting jumbo frames)
vSphere is the industry-leading virtualization platform, and the foundation for VMware’s end-to-end enterprise software stack. It allows you to create a virtual environment that runs on a single physical server or multiple physical servers. VMware vSphere provides a powerful and flexible infrastructure platform that enables you to build, deploy and manage IT services ranging from traditional IT applications to cloud computing and big data solutions.
The hardware required for a home lab is simple: a desktop PC or laptop with enough RAM (2GB at least) and hard disk space (50GB). You can even use an old computer as long as it has an available PCI slot for expansion cards. You also need an operating system, which is Windows 7 or later or Linux Mint, Ubuntu etc., depending on which hypervisor you want to use.
I recommend using VMware ESXi 6.5 U2 because it supports the latest AMD Ryzen processors and NVIDIA graphics cards without having to install drivers manually like with ESXi 6.7 U1 or ESXi 6.7 U2!
The following is the list of hardware I use for my home-lab. Please note that this is not a recommendation or endorsement. The aim of this article is to show you what kind of hardware I use and how I configured it to support my VMware environment.
The first thing we need to do is to decide what OS we are going to use. For the purpose of this post, I will be using VMware ESXi 6.7 U2 because it is the latest version at the time of writing (October 2018). We will also be using vSAN for our storage needs as well as vSphere 6.7 Update 2 (vSphere 6.7 U2) which comes bundled with vSAN 6.7 U2.
1. ESXi Hosts:
1) ESXi Host 1 (ESXi-H1): Intel i9-7900X 3.3GHz (Up to 4.3GHz Turbo) 10C/20T CPU, 128GB RAM, 2x E5-2650 V4 2.2GHz 15C/30T CPUs, 256GB RAM, Nvidia Tesla P100 GPU, 2x Intel X540-T2 Dual 10GbE Network Adapters
2) ESXi Host 2 (ESXi-H2): Intel Xeon E5-2690 V4 2.6GHz 20C/40T CPU, 128GB RAM, Nvidia Tesla P100 GPU, 2x Intel X540-T2 Dual 10GbE Network Adapters
3) ESXi Host 3 (ESXi-H3): Intel Xeon E5-2650 V4 2.2GHz 15C/30T CPU, 128GB RAM, Nvidia Tesla M60 GPU with 4GB GDDR5 Memory.
This post is a continuation of my previous post, VMWare VSAN Home Lab. Here I will share the details of my home lab setup, including the hardware and software that I used.
VMware ESXi Host
I have configured two ESXi hosts in a cluster. One of them is an HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen9 and the other is an HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9. Both are running ESXi 6.5 U1 build 5146846 and host 4 VMs each (i.e., 8 total). The CPU type for both the hosts is Intel Xeon E5-2660 v4 (2x 10 core @ 2.20GHz). The memory size for each host is 256 GB (16 x 16 GB DDR4). In addition to this, I am using 1 Gb NICs for management traffic on both the servers, which means that all my VM traffic runs over 10 Gb network cards.
In order to create a VMware Virtual SAN cluster, you need at least three ESXi hosts. You can add more nodes later if needed but at least three nodes are required for a VSAN cluster at this time.
VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) is a software-defined storage solution that creates a shared storage pool out of the local storage in each host in a cluster. The resulting storage that VSAN provides is presented as a single, large datastore to virtual machines (VMs).
VSAN’s shared nature makes it ideal for home labs and small businesses. It also means that each host needs to have enough local storage capacity to handle the data requirements of its VMs, so if you have multiple hosts, you’ll need enough space on each one.
One feature of VSAN that you won’t find with other hyperconverged solutions is its ability to support multi-tenancy — meaning you can create multiple clusters with different hosts and VMs all running on the same physical hardware. This makes it possible to build an affordable home lab environment with multiple ESXi hosts providing shared storage for VMs running different applications and operating systems.
VMware vSphere home lab guide
Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I don’t get paid by anyone to write this blog post. This is an independent work and all the opinions expressed here are my own.
I have been using VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) for more than 15 years now and I have always been passionate about it. In fact, I have written multiple articles on various aspects of ESXi including how to set up virtual machines, how to configure storage controllers, etc… But, at the same time, I have also used other hypervisors such as KVM and Hyper-V on several occasions.
In this article, we will be discussing how you can setup your own VMware ESXi Home Lab using Amazon EC2 instance(s). The main reason behind this post is that most of us dont have access to dedicated hardware for setting up a home lab environment for learning purposes or for testing new features/functionalities before implementing them in production environments. This guide will help you setup your own VMware ESXi Home Lab in minutes without having any prior knowledge about networking or storage configuration.
VMware vSphere ESXi is an enterprise-class virtualization platform that allows you to create and manage virtual machines (VMs).
ESXi can be installed on a physical server or in a virtual machine. If you have a small budget, you can choose to build your own home lab using VMware Workstation Player or Pro.
However, if you are looking for an affordable solution then I would recommend ESXi Free Hypervisor as it comes with all the features of ESXi 6.7 Update 3 and it has no license cost attached to it.
VMware ESXi is a bare-metal hypervisor that runs on servers and transforms them into virtual machines, allowing multiple operating systems to run on a single server. ESXi is the foundation of VMware’s vSphere Virtual Machine (VM) infrastructure.
The VMware vSphere suite of products includes VMware ESXi, the free version of VMware vSphere, and the paid enterprise version (Enterprise Plus). The Enterprise Plus edition provides advanced features such as High Availability and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS).
Setting up a home lab can be both fun and challenging. It’s usually a great way to learn new skills that you can use in your day job or to hone your existing skills. A home lab setup can also help you test new software or hardware before deploying it in production environments.
ESXi Home Lab 2022 Hardware
The first thing you need to do is choose the right hardware for your ESXi home lab 2102. If you want to build an affordable VMware ESXi home lab 2102, then I recommend that you use Intel NUCs or mini PCs with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD. In this article, I will show you how to build a VMware ESXi home lab 2102 with Intel NUCs or mini PCs. However, if you want a more powerful vSAN Home Lab 2022, then it’s better to use workstation laptops such as Dell Precision 7720/7730 or Precision 7530/7540 laptops instead of Intel NUCs or mini PCs because they have more powerful CPUs like Xeon E-2176M processor (8 cores) and faster processors such as Quadro P5000 graphics card which can help improve performance significantly when running vRealize Automation 7 tests.