So, I acquired this...

[BinaryData]

So, my work was tossing these racks, among several others. i.e. EMC, Dell, APC, and several others. They come with 1u - 2u PDUs, some with monitoring, some without, vertical PDUs as well.

 

So I asked my boss if I could help him take stuff to the dump. By dump I mean my garage. Now, the fun part is filling it up with useful stuff...

 

Say hello to my new lab! Completely consolidated into 1 area. I have a Cisco Catalyst 2960 52 port Switch for it.

 

http://imgur.com/a/dD8hS

 

There are images.

[Mando]

15 hours ago, BinaryData said:

So, my work was tossing these racks, among several others. i.e. EMC, Dell, APC, and several others. They come with 1u - 2u PDUs, some with monitoring, some without, vertical PDUs as well.

 

So I asked my boss if I could help him take stuff to the dump. By dump I mean my garage. Now, the fun part is filling it up with useful stuff...

 

Say hello to my new lab! Completely consolidated into 1 area. I have a Cisco Catalyst 2960 52 port Switch for it.

 

http://imgur.com/a/dD8hS

 

There are images.

the 2960 is still a decent, in support switch, i have 6 of them in my comms room serving all endpoints. the rack with APC ups etc still worth a decent price. youve done well

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

That is a great find.

[sc302 Veteran]

2960 is a great switch.  At work we use the 2960-xr's (the "r" is for router I would guess...as in they have layer 3 capability)...they are also poe.  They probably are the newest line of 2960 as well, being released in mid 2013. 

[Mando]

7 minutes ago, sc302 said:

2960 is a great switch.  At work we use the 2960-xr's (the "r" is for router I would guess...as in they have layer 3 capability)...they are also poe.  They probably are the newest line of 2960 as well, being released in mid 2013. 

actually yep right enough, Totally forgot they PoE compat, got a few ports also running PoE in the stack. 4 x SFCs on front of each too.  

 

Server room stack is based around a 2960 24porter (boss choice, mistake) although once i retire the old blade center etc (its all esxi HA setup now on a pair of IBM/Lenovo X series hosts/San) it will do nicely.

 

good robust kit the 2960s and the rack looks mint, nice rack! 

Edited September 13, 2016 by Mando

[BinaryData]

9 hours ago, Gary7 said:

That is a great find.

I'm getting another 42u Rack, it'll be for SAN Storage or networking gear.

8 hours ago, sc302 said:

2960 is a great switch.  At work we use the 2960-xr's (the "r" is for router I would guess...as in they have layer 3 capability)...they are also poe.  They probably are the newest line of 2960 as well, being released in mid 2013. 

We use the 2960-xr's in a few sections. I'm thankful I'm getting one, I might be able to get a second too. We'll see. 

8 hours ago, Mando said:

actually yep right enough, Totally forgot they PoE compat, got a few ports also running PoE in the stack. 4 x SFCs on front of each too.  

 

Server room stack is based around a 2960 24porter (boss choice, mistake) although once i retire the old blade center etc (its all esxi HA setup now on a pair of IBM/Lenovo X series hosts/San) it will do nicely.

 

good robust kit the 2960s and the rack looks mint, nice rack! 

I'm building a nice lab, something that's portable, thus the reason for the racks. When I don't need them anymore, I'm going to donate the entire setup to my local college or school. The hardware is all enterprise grade stuff. Most of my network will be 10Gbit, BudMan's convinced me to get a 8 core ITX Supermicro server, 32GB RAM, SSD HD, and it'll run pfSense, PLEX Server, and my SSH access point. I honestly, have no idea what I'd do with a second switch, it would save me loads of cash though, I'll just need a small 18 Port or something for my brothers room.

 

That lab will have nice storage, I'm starting with 1 Supermicro 36 Bay, I plan on buying 1 - 2 8TB per month, fill it up, and run a linux RAID on it, something with redundancy. I plan on putting some low-grade towers in the rack that'll serve as my client/server for pentesting and what not. BudMan will laugh, but idgaf. I'm not going to let people ###### on my fun or my dream.

[Circaflex]

2 minutes ago, BinaryData said:

BudMan's convinced me to get a 8 core ITX Supermicro server,

You grabbin one of the little HP's?

[BinaryData]

1 minute ago, Circaflex said:

You grabbin one of the little HP's?

http://www.wiredzone.com/supermicro-servers-compact-embedded-processor-sys-5028d-tn4t-10024470

 

Getting this. It'll cost about $1500, an HP Gen8 MicroServer would handle the same load, but this comes with more options, and it'll be fun having Budman configure it.

[Haggis Veteran]

can you send me a gigabit switch that has at least 16 ports lol

[+John Teacake MVC]

Another "Upvote" for the 2960. They are pretty much the staple of many installs around the world. 

[sc302 Veteran]

18 minutes ago, Haggis said:

can you send me a gigabit switch that has at least 16 ports lol

I could but you would have to pay for shipping and that would kill any cost savings.

 

No no it wouldn't be a xr or 2960 for that matter. 

[+BudMan MVC]

"HP Gen8 MicroServer would handle the same load"

 

Huh?  That box is so far above what a gen8 micro could handle its not even funny..  Unless there is some new gen8 with 8 cpus that I am not aware?  I show the highend gen 8 with 2...  Simple compare

That box also comes with 4 nics 2 of which are 10ge..

 

Ship it out to me and be happy to configure it for you, run it through some tests and then send it back..

[BinaryData]

4 hours ago, BudMan said:

"HP Gen8 MicroServer would handle the same load"

 

Huh?  That box is so far above what a gen8 micro could handle its not even funny..  Unless there is some new gen8 with 8 cpus that I am not aware?  I show the highend gen 8 with 2...  Simple compare

That box also comes with 4 nics 2 of which are 10ge..

 

Ship it out to me and be happy to configure it for you, run it through some tests and then send it back..

You just want to play with it  Can't blame you, I'll be able to pick it up at the end of the month, if everything goes well, and I'm not slapped with another stupid fine. I was fined $250 for carrying a weapon in a Gun Free Zone. 

[T3X4S]

So, why do you need all of this for your house ?
 

[Bryan R.]

25 minutes ago, BinaryData said:

You just want to play with it  Can't blame you, I'll be able to pick it up at the end of the month, if everything goes well, and I'm not slapped with another stupid fine. I was fined $250 for carrying a weapon in a Gun Free Zone. 

Yeah, no more fines since your electricity is going to increase by roughly that amount 

[BinaryData]

3 hours ago, T3X4S said:

So, why do you need all of this for your house ?
 

Because it's fun, and I like having a hobby that's also work related. People don't seem to fully grasp that I love IT, if I can have fun doing it at home, and do a job similar to where I can learn and expand my knowledge, I'm down. I've been working on having a network where I can do Cisco Enterprise commands, and learn for my CCNA. I was even going to talk to BudMan, and see if he'd help me figure out how to combine 2 WAN Routers to talk to each other on the same "network", i.e. Intuit had their HQ in San Diego, CA and a facility in Washington State, but it was all under corp network. I want to become fluent before I take the exam.

 

2 hours ago, Bryan R. said:

Yeah, no more fines since your electricity is going to increase by roughly that amount 

Actually, I have some of the cheapest power in the world, I would say. I pay about 3 to 5 cents per K/w. My monthly bill for a month is about $55 - $65 depending on how much I crank the AC too. I'll be using the fireplace this winter, at least I hope too. Cuts down on the power.

[Raa]

Nice catch! (Y)

[PGHammer]

On 9/13/2016 at 10:54 PM, BinaryData said:

I'm getting another 42u Rack, it'll be for SAN Storage or networking gear.

We use the 2960-xr's in a few sections. I'm thankful I'm getting one, I might be able to get a second too. We'll see. 

I'm building a nice lab, something that's portable, thus the reason for the racks. When I don't need them anymore, I'm going to donate the entire setup to my local college or school. The hardware is all enterprise grade stuff. Most of my network will be 10Gbit, BudMan's convinced me to get a 8 core ITX Supermicro server, 32GB RAM, SSD HD, and it'll run pfSense, PLEX Server, and my SSH access point. I honestly, have no idea what I'd do with a second switch, it would save me loads of cash though, I'll just need a small 18 Port or something for my brothers room.

 

That lab will have nice storage, I'm starting with 1 Supermicro 36 Bay, I plan on buying 1 - 2 8TB per month, fill it up, and run a linux RAID on it, something with redundancy. I plan on putting some low-grade towers in the rack that'll serve as my client/server for pentesting and what not. BudMan will laugh, but idgaf. I'm not going to let people ###### on my fun or my dream.

This is the sort of reason I am frustrated in not being able to hit up auctions - between corporate and government, auctions in the DC/Baltimore,MD SMSAs (not even counting the SMSAs of Annapolis, Richmond, Frederick and Hagerstown) can be chockablock of tech and IT-related finds.  Rasmus Auctioneers is the largest other than GSA for tech/IT auctions; some of the finds (and at supremely-silly-cheap prices) have literally made me wince.  (They actually do track what went - and for how much; hence the wincing.)

[T3X4S]

10 hours ago, BinaryData said:

Because it's fun, and I like having a hobby that's also work related. People don't seem to fully grasp that I love IT, if I can have fun doing it at home, and do a job similar to where I can learn and expand my knowledge, I'm down. I've been working on having a network where I can do Cisco Enterprise commands, and learn for my CCNA. I was even going to talk to BudMan, and see if he'd help me figure out how to combine 2 WAN Routers to talk to each other on the same "network", i.e. Intuit had their HQ in San Diego, CA and a facility in Washington State, but it was all under corp network. I want to become fluent before I take the exam.

 

Actually, I have some of the cheapest power in the world, I would say. I pay about 3 to 5 cents per K/w. My monthly bill for a month is about $55 - $65 depending on how much I crank the AC too. I'll be using the fireplace this winter, at least I hope too. Cuts down on the power.

Oh - I love this stuff too - and if I had silly amounts of room, and no fiance - I'd do the same kind of things.

I was just wondering because on previous conversations, I thought you were in between jobs - & frankly spending money on things like this would not seem wise (regardless of how good the deal was) - that's all.

And I mean no offense - I didn't know if you were starting a biz, buying for selling later (which a lot of people do when they get nice 48U racks @ Cisco equip piling up in their garage when they realize its not as easy to unload as they thought...

There is another longtime thread in here with people having ridiculous amounts of hardware in their house - they claim "I have 20 devices that need access" or something silly - 
I was wondering if you were leaning into that category where you had convinced yourself you needed a bazooka instead of a fly swatter @ your house.

[+BudMan MVC]

that box is not all that power hungry to be honest.  Its small in size and provides for plenty of play room and upgrade.  10ge when it become more economical for house, and can start with lower amount of ram but go up to 128GB if need be, etc.  Its not crazy to spend 1500 on something like that.  Shoot he was talking of spending 3k on a PC to play games on, etc.

 

Its pretty simple to put 2 routers on the same network.  Either start a thread for this topic or PM me and we can go over what your wanting to accomplish exactly.

 

I would prob have a couple of those if my toy spending didn't have to go through spending committee (my wife) hehehe

 

As to 20 things needing access.  that is not all that much if you think about the iot of things that is coming and everyone having phones and tablets etc.. So lets list some stuff that needs internet access

dvr

roku 4

rokustick

pc

laptop 1 mine

laptop 2 wife

laptop 3 work

nest thermo

nest protect

harmony (tv remote)

my phone

wife phone

esxi host (router, plex, storage, etc)

printer

AP 1

AP 2

AP 3

Ipad

rasp pi 1 old b model

rasp pi 2 pi3

rasp pi 3 pi3

rasp pi 4 zero

 

That is over 20, now the AP could be not counted I guess since they provide access, but they use up a wire to get on the network.  My kids are gone but they both had phones and laptops would of been 4 more devices.  I don't currently have any console games but when son's where home there were 2 of those.  I don't see how 20 devices is anything crazy especially for someone who is into IT be it hobby/work or both, etc.  I combined multiple things into my esxi or those would all be counted as more things, etc.  And I am prob forgetting a few things. And there really should be more of the nest protects, started with one but prob 3 more should be put up as soon as I get the budget through the spending committee and replace the traditional smoke detectors in those rooms.

 

Future protect will be adding camera's - many homes have these, looking atleast 5 new things the 4 camera's I want and then the nvr to record it too, etc.  I would say 30 is prob a better number for your typical household these days, especially if their are teenage kids with phones and consoles and etc..  And that is if they are not even techy..

 

Lets not forget speakers - I don't currently have any, but money people have say sonos all over their houses.. That alone could be 4 to 10, etc.

[Mando]

my mrs would kill me if i built another home lab, gone are the days of using my poweredges for footstools lol

 i have my lab at work n remote direct access. tbh i lean towards VMware ESXi setups these days on clusters of old kit

 

on a slightly diff note i transplanted my home games desktop to a new Corsair 400C  looks lush. Kind of related as its my personal portal to work lab.

 

 

 

[BinaryData]

8 hours ago, T3X4S said:

Oh - I love this stuff too - and if I had silly amounts of room, and no fiance - I'd do the same kind of things.

I was just wondering because on previous conversations, I thought you were in between jobs - & frankly spending money on things like this would not seem wise (regardless of how good the deal was) - that's all.

And I mean no offense - I didn't know if you were starting a biz, buying for selling later (which a lot of people do when they get nice 48U racks @ Cisco equip piling up in their garage when they realize its not as easy to unload as they thought...

There is another longtime thread in here with people having ridiculous amounts of hardware in their house - they claim "I have 20 devices that need access" or something silly - 
I was wondering if you were leaning into that category where you had convinced yourself you needed a bazooka instead of a fly swatter @ your house.

 

Oh no offense taken. I probably won't fill this rack for many years, I'm dropping a few thousand on a new PC, and dropping $1500 on the ITX Box for my new router. My 2960 Switch has enough ports to handle my garage and anything I need, honestly. I'm not even going to bother with UPS, I don't think.

 

5 hours ago, BudMan said:

that box is not all that power hungry to be honest.  Its small in size and provides for plenty of play room and upgrade.  10ge when it become more economical for house, and can start with lower amount of ram but go up to 128GB if need be, etc.  Its not crazy to spend 1500 on something like that.  Shoot he was talking of spending 3k on a PC to play games on, etc.

 

Its pretty simple to put 2 routers on the same network.  Either start a thread for this topic or PM me and we can go over what your wanting to accomplish exactly.

 

I would prob have a couple of those if my toy spending didn't have to go through spending committee (my wife) hehehe

 

As to 20 things needing access.  that is not all that much if you think about the iot of things that is coming and everyone having phones and tablets etc.. So lets list some stuff that needs internet access

dvr

roku 4

rokustick

pc

laptop 1 mine

laptop 2 wife

laptop 3 work

nest thermo

nest protect

harmony (tv remote)

my phone

wife phone

esxi host (router, plex, storage, etc)

printer

AP 1

AP 2

AP 3

Ipad

rasp pi 1 old b model

rasp pi 2 pi3

rasp pi 3 pi3

rasp pi 4 zero

 

That is over 20, now the AP could be not counted I guess since they provide access, but they use up a wire to get on the network.  My kids are gone but they both had phones and laptops would of been 4 more devices.  I don't currently have any console games but when son's where home there were 2 of those.  I don't see how 20 devices is anything crazy especially for someone who is into IT be it hobby/work or both, etc.  I combined multiple things into my esxi or those would all be counted as more things, etc.  And I am prob forgetting a few things. And there really should be more of the nest protects, started with one but prob 3 more should be put up as soon as I get the budget through the spending committee and replace the traditional smoke detectors in those rooms.

 

Future protect will be adding camera's - many homes have these, looking atleast 5 new things the 4 camera's I want and then the nvr to record it too, etc.  I would say 30 is prob a better number for your typical household these days, especially if their are teenage kids with phones and consoles and etc..  And that is if they are not even techy..

 

Lets not forget speakers - I don't currently have any, but money people have say sonos all over their houses.. That alone could be 4 to 10, etc.

 

In due time, I'm going to pick up that switch this weekend, so I can have my network complete. I'm in the process of resetting that 2960 to factory settings because they didn't tell me the root information, which happens to be the current information. The label I pulled off was from our IDF/MDF area, lol. We just upgraded our network to handle 40Gbit, and I think my boss said 100Gbit but I could be hearing things.

 

Oh, and it's very easy to breach 20 Connections, my home right now has probably 20. 4 Smart TVs, will 6 soon. 2 TVs for the security cameras, my garage connection (Switch to Switch), 5 -  7 PCs, 2 XBOXs, 2 PS4s, 1 PS3, Wii, and all my Raspberry Pis. So probably 35 are connected, only 8 are wired though.

 

1 hour ago, Mando said:

my mrs would kill me if i built another home lab, gone are the days of using my poweredges for footstools lol

 i have my lab at work n remote direct access. tbh i lean towards VMware ESXi setups these days on clusters of old kit

 

on a slightly diff note i transplanted my home games desktop to a new Corsair 400C  looks lush. Kind of related as its my personal portal to work lab.

 

 

 

I'm not married yet, this woman is trying exceptionally hard to push for that. We're not dating, but she keeps dropping the cue that she wants more kids, and to get married. She's got a son right now, I'm kicking around the idea of flying up to Alaska for some fishing (Send some Fresh Salmon to BudMan!) and have a date with her. Fishing is priority here, date comes second  

[PGHammer]

8 hours ago, T3X4S said:

Oh - I love this stuff too - and if I had silly amounts of room, and no fiance - I'd do the same kind of things.

I was just wondering because on previous conversations, I thought you were in between jobs - & frankly spending money on things like this would not seem wise (regardless of how good the deal was) - that's all.

And I mean no offense - I didn't know if you were starting a biz, buying for selling later (which a lot of people do when they get nice 48U racks @ Cisco equip piling up in their garage when they realize its not as easy to unload as they thought...

There is another longtime thread in here with people having ridiculous amounts of hardware in their house - they claim "I have 20 devices that need access" or something silly - 
I was wondering if you were leaning into that category where you had convinced yourself you needed a bazooka instead of a fly swatter @ your house.

And unless there is a reserve - and there almost NEVER is when it comes to IT or tech-related items - stuff goes silly-cheap.  (It's why government auctions - ALL levels of government, and especially law enforcement seizures - have that reputation for bargain-bazaardom. You think that it's just in the United States - or even just our cities? I'm sure that the various local constabularies - or gendarmarie - or carabinieri - sell off THEIR excess pilferage post-trial; how does THAT sell at auction? (Note that I didn't cite the US at all; instead, I cited the UK, France, and Italy - and specifically their towns and municipalities, let alone the national police (New Scotland Yard for the UK, and the Gendarmarie and Carabinieri for the French and Italians, respectively).

 

On the non-government side there was a large cleanout when Verizon Communications did two overlarge acquisitions - first was MCI Communications (both their HQ space AND their operations center co-located with UUnet in Ashburn) and the second (and more recent) was America Online (again it wasn't JUST the HQ; like MCI, AOL had both a MegaPOP and a NOC in Ashburn) - surplusage, surplusage, and yet MORE surplusage.

Edited September 16, 2016 by PGHammer
What can trigger an auction

[sc302 Veteran]

2960 reset, hold the button on the front in for 30 seconds.  If you have a console cable and putty up, you will see when it wipes.  

 

 

A good exercise though is to find out how to recover pass or reset pass without wiping so that you can get familiar with the process. But if you are like me and forget after you do it, just default it. 

[BinaryData]

3 hours ago, PGHammer said:

And unless there is a reserve - and there almost NEVER is when it comes to IT or tech-related items - stuff goes silly-cheap.  (It's why government auctions - ALL levels of government, and especially law enforcement seizures - have that reputation for bargain-bazaardom. You think that it's just in the United States - or even just our cities? I'm sure that the various local constabularies - or gendarmarie - or carabinieri - sell off THEIR excess pilferage post-trial; how does THAT sell at auction? (Note that I didn't cite the US at all; instead, I cited the UK, France, and Italy - and specifically their towns and municipalities, let alone the national police (New Scotland Yard for the UK, and the Gendarmarie and Carabinieri for the French and Italians, respectively).

 

On the non-government side there was a large cleanout when Verizon Communications did two overlarge acquisitions - first was MCI Communications (both their HQ space AND their operations center co-located with UUnet in Ashburn) and the second (and more recent) was America Online (again it wasn't JUST the HQ; like MCI, AOL had both a MegaPOP and a NOC in Ashburn) - surplusage, surplusage, and yet MORE surplusage.

That's more of a "We don't want to mess with it, let's just sell it cheap as hell!" My buddy got some really great gear for cheap. He's got enough c7000 blades and chassis to run a mini DC. He got a pallet of pre-terminated cat6 cables from 6" to 100' for like $75. Though, he won't freaking share. So f 'em.

3 hours ago, sc302 said:

2960 reset, hold the button on the front in for 30 seconds.  If you have a console cable and putty up, you will see when it wipes.  

 

 

A good exercise though is to find out how to recover pass or reset pass without wiping so that you can get familiar with the process. But if you are like me and forget after you do it, just default it. 

Hah. I've never worked with enterprise gear, not for 3 - 4 years. I never did learn the default login information and what not. I was stoked when my boss said I could have it because it teaches a good chunk of the Cisco CLI. I'm going to stick this in my bedroom until I have my rack in my garage, and everything cabled up to work out there. I also want to get a few more devices out there before I drop a 48 port switch. Seems a bit wasteful to have all of that there. I can now officially remove all the cables in my house with this. I have a bundle running in the corner of my ceiling of white cat6 cables, lol!