Yeah I'm probably spending $75+ a month on electric for this. That said I can run 50-75 VMs concurrently with no sweat. It is nice to be able to pull up any version of windows or exchange or whatever and look at something, but, the forest all this stuff is in is also screwed up on an epic level. Nice for real world testing but also obnoxious when you just want something to work quickly.
Thanks, Brian Desmond [email protected] w - 312.625.1438 | c - 312.731.3132 From: William Robbins [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 7:25 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Wireless controller for 2 APs? "... I absolutely hate having to play SysAdmin at home..." This reminds me of why I finally dumped all my servers and routers at home, and try to stick with virtual labs when the occasion arises. That said I'm certain you do simulations of client environments that I just don't have to do any longer that requires hardware to manipulate. Some days I miss the sounds of all those fans, but I don't miss the utility bill that went along with them. :) - Will On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 19:06, Brian Desmond <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I don't have a wireless router. Essentially what I have is a bit complicated but very manageable: * My Comcast comes into my home office in the basement. There's a Cisco 1741 I acquired which the Internet and Wireless hang off of. * I have a pair of Dell 8 port GigE managed switches (like 75 bucks each) that all my stuff (PCs, phone, printer, MFP, etc.) plugs into in the basement o The "management" interface on these things is craptastic, but the price/functionality ratio was right and they are fan-less * Said switches have a Cisco 11something WAP attached which I acquired several of at a somewhat questionably exceedingly low price on ebay - general WiFi SSID is hosted here * Upstairs in my living room, I have another one of the Dell switches under the TV - a second Cisco 11something WAP is bridging the network up to there from the basement, and my Media Center, XBOX, etc. are all plugged in * The new DLink is hanging off the living room switch with a different SSID and is really dedicated to servicing my media center extender xbox in the bedroom as I was getting poor perf for HD over 802.11G. At some point I might just replace the Cisco WAP in the basement with another DLINK as it looks like they can do the bridging plus give me N into my office network as well. The Cisco router needs to go one of these days as it's loud and sucking power but it hasn't yet become a priority after 2 years of me complaining that it's loud. I need throughput on the router as my lab environment is on a separate VLAN so that passes through the router. I tend to just spend the extra money on the low-end (or older mid-range) commercial gear as while I absolutely hate having to play SysAdmin at home, on the odd occasion that I have a need to do something strange, the capability is there. For example I had to mess with some multicast settings to get the media center extender working when I got it. Likewise my VOIP company was recently alleging that my phone issues were my fault and I mirrored the phone's port off the switch and produced a trace proving otherwise. I will caution that the flipside of buying commercial wireless gear in particular requires that you have some semblance of a clue about WiFi and RF and so forth. Mine is really limited to what I read on Wikipedia, ownership of a full roll of tin foil, and the occasional favor from someone who actually understands this stuff. I've had some challenges getting my WiFi to work correctly and perform, especially in a dense urban residential neighborhood where everybody and their brother has some form of Linksys wifi broadcasting. Finally, I also invested some money on a couple APC UPS' (~$175/ea range) that can sustain everything for more than 2 or 3 minutes and that have little LCD readouts on them that show load and power info. Even living in a major city, the power gets a little screwy sometimes, especially during summer storms (this weekend in fact). It doesn't always go out but it gets dirty enough to get out of the tolerances on the UPS'. Thanks, Brian Desmond [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> w - 312.625.1438<tel:312.625.1438> | c - 312.731.3132<tel:312.731.3132> From: Webster [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 6:06 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Wireless controller for 2 APs? Brian, What wireless router do you have this matched up with? I have a Linksys E3200 and haven't found anything yet (from OfficeMax [for easy returns]) that works with it. Thanks Carl Webster Consultant and Citrix Technology Professional http://www.CarlWebster.com<http://www.carlwebster.com/> From: Brian Desmond [mailto:[email protected]] Subject: RE: Wireless controller for 2 APs? btw the reason I picked that one over other competing or cheaper models is that the Ethernet port on it is GigE. Many of these N-band APs have 100meg ports and I wanted to make sure that I could push >100mbps over the air down to the switch it's plugged into. From: Brian Desmond [mailto:[email protected]]<mailto:[mailto:[email protected]]> Subject: RE: Wireless controller for 2 APs? I picked one of these up - http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=DAP-2553. Seems featureful, works well (so far), and was reasonably easy to configure. Make sure you flash the firmware as there's a bunch of new functionality. Thanks, Brian Desmond [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> w - 312.625.1438<tel:312.625.1438> | c - 312.731.3132<tel:312.731.3132> From: Kevin Lundy [mailto:[email protected]] Subject: Re: Wireless controller for 2 APs? Brian - which D-Link model? I'm in the market for a new AP. On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 2:25 PM, Brian Desmond <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Sounds overkill. I just bought a D-Link WAP for my house a couple weeks ago that's out of their SMB type line and it even has a little basic wireless controller function built into it. Got it for perhaps 120 bucks on Amazon. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
