Brainstorming

Intro

This section is simply a list of all of the ideas we have for sections. After each section title feel free to update your name against the line item in italics (double apostrophe on either side of your name) if you would like to complete the initial build out of the content for that individual page. Once you have completed it to a satisfactory level, please mark it off with a checkmark (✔) to enable us to track our progress against the list.

Alex has pre-assigned a few where people may be best suited to doing the initial content creation, or people had already expressed an interest!

The Open Homelab Project

• About the Project - Alex ✔
• Founders and Mods - Alex ✔

Building the Homelab

Setting the Scene

Setting the Scene

Types of Homelab	Common Requirements	Other
Single Host Virtualisation - jonythunder vInception / vTARDIS ✔ Physical cluster Array of Inexpensive PCs (AIPCs) Cloud Hybrid Gathering requirements - Alex ✔	Use cases ✔ Study ✔ Media ✔ CCTV ✔ Pics ✔ Blogs ✔	Wife Acceptance Factor - Alex Budget Capex vs Opex

Hypervisors, Power, Cooling, Noise and Compute

Hardware Basics

Hypervisors & Ecosystems	Power, Cooling & Noise	Compute	Cream Boxes
VMware vSphere - Bryan Microsoft Hyper-V KVM -Sketch XenServer Nesting hypervisors ✔ vInception ✔ vTARDIS ✔ OpenStack bhyve	Power UPS Locating your lab with your employer Choosing low power components - Alec Intel CPU Differences Networking power Storage COnsiderations DPM Use more power hungry machines? Turn off when not in use Scripts to power on/off Cooling and Noise Comparing CPUs and heat Chassis size is inversely proportional heat exchange noise Summer vs winter Tips for cooling Airbricks!	I3 vs i5 vs i7 vs Xeon Clock speeds Hyperthreading More, cheaper vs fewer, faster AzureStack RAM requirements Config file change for 32GB Loadsa RAM Optimum ratio of cores to RAM	Whitebox or vendor? Racks Small Racks Silent Racks Lack Racks Tower or Rackmount Chassis Corsair Obsidian Series 900D E-ATX Super Tower - Ather ✔ Corsair Carbide Series 400R ATX Mid-Tower - Ather ✔ Intel NUCs - Alex ✔ HP ML110 - Dave HP ML115 - Dave HP ML305 - Mike Apple Mac Minis Gigabyte BRIX MicroServers Supermicro microtower with Xeon-D - "Joep" BLADES! Dell M1000e

Networking, Storage, Cloud Labs and Other

Hardware Basics

Networking	Storage	Cloud Labs	Other
Ports Multi-NIC configs VMware NSX Standard vs Distributed Switches Other uses (e.g. CCNA study) Cisco SG300 - Dave 10Gbps - Erik Infiniband - Erik Cable Management Managed Switches For Home Use - Alec Multiple switches and using port channels Tips when Flood Cabling your house Tips when Retrofitting Cabling to your house Powerline adapters - Alex Home Wi-Fi Cisco Meraki Open-Mesh Ubiquiti - Alec ' ✔ ZeroTier	Home array types / NAS boxes - Alex ✔ Synology Synology DS 1513+/1515+ - Alec Synology DS713+ - Pietro Synology DX 213 Expansion - Alec Synology DX1513 Expansion - Alec Reclaiming storage from machines Best way to lay out iSCSI drives VAAI Flash vs spindle ✔ Flash NVMe PCI Cards SSDs Mixing lab data and home data ✔ Local drives (vInception) ✔ Storage Software ✔ FreeNAS Openfiler - Keiran S Starwind NetApp Data ONTAP simulator EMC ScaleIO EMC vVNX or with VVol support EMC IsilonSD Edge? Not sure if standalone EMC Isilon Simulator EMC ViPR EMC Data Domain VE - 0.5TB or replication EMC ECS Object storage Enterprise storage Uses more power than you would think! :o ✔ Hyper-convergence ✔ VMware VSAN - Frank B Nutanix CE Atlantis? Local caching PernixData - Gareth :) or anyone else can help Intel CAS	Intro to Cloud Homelabs - Alex ✔ How much time monthly spent in the homelab? ✔ Amazon AWS Free Tier - Alex Azure GCP? Ravello Bare Metal Cloud – baremetalcloud.com Free labs ✔ VMware HoL	Containers Docker Rkt VMware Photon Kubernetes Mesosphere Licensing VMware Licensing Microsoft Licensing - Chris B

Managing your Homelab

Managing Your Homelab

Directory Services	Backups	Configuration Management	DNS & IP Management	Automation & Code
Active Directory Univention OpenLDAP vCenter SSO Other LDAPs etc	Backup to the cloud? Free backup products, e.g. Veeam NFR licenses (Veeam Backup & Replication) Nakivo NFR licenses etc	Puppet Chef Ansible	DNS Tools AD Integrated IPAM Tools MS IPAM	AutoLab Ravello VMware Templates vRealize Operations vRealize Automation SCOM Puppet Razer GIT Jenkins

Managing Your Homelab

Patching	Monitoring	Logging	Load Balancing	Email	Other
WSUS Spacewalk	SCOM Spiceworks Veeam One Sensu Observium PRTG MRTG	VMware LogInsight Splunk ELK Syslog Basics	NetScaler KEMP - Gareth	SMTP Exchange	Should I run a separate management cluster or server? VCSA vs Windows vCenter? Managing without vCenter (tips and tricks if you're not a vExpert/VMUG Advantage) - Chris B Managing via Xbox! - Chris B Managing your Homelab from a Mobile Device - k.i.n.g Managing your VMware vSphere Homelab from Mac OSX Franks Original Article - Frank D Best practices and recommendations for running a homelab KISS

Securing your Homelab

Securing your Homelab

Security & remote access	Firewalls	Other
Remote Access and VPNs - Alex G VPN OpenVPN Appliance with free SSL Certs from startSSL.com - Phil Morris RDP Web Access - Gareth Headless Access - Alex G	Virtual Firewalls Physical Firewalls including Whitebox PC Engines ALIX - Pietro VMware NSX	Certificates - Gareth Antivirus / anti-spam Sophos - James K Child Proofing your Homelab!

Decision Trees

This will be the tricky part - perhaps we have a few different ones based on different elements of the lab? I would love to do one all-encompasing d-tree but I don’t think it will be possible

The section index is here:

• Homelab Decision Trees

Homelab HCL

Reviews / Discussion on specific hardware in the context of homelabs? Could also have lists of tested hardware for things like HBAs which work with VSAN, etc?

The section index is here:

• The Unofficial Homelab HCL

Other Stuff

• Running a mainframe!
  • IBM zSeries (z/OS, z/VM, Linux on System z)
  • IBM iSeries (AS/400)
  • Unisys (Clearpath MCP?)

Cool Homelab Blog Posts / Blog Series

• Maybe a bunch of links - Chris Wahl has a list we could use to start with - with permission of course! http://wahlnetwork.com/my-home-lab/resources/