Happy New Years everyone! I was supposed to get this out right before the holidays but #babylam got really sick and I had to put this on hold.
Back in November I threw out an idea on Twitter to see if the #vCommunity would be interested in doing a group buy for some Supermicro kits, especially for those looking to upgrade their personal home labs to take advantage of all the new VMware goodies such as vSAN, NSX and PKS for example.
Just thinking out loud … but would the #VMware Home Lab Community be interested in a potential Group Buy for Supermicro gear? Could be bare-bones chassis or some package configuration with memory + storage?
— William Lam (@lamw.bsky.social | @*protected email*) (@lamw) November 14, 2018
Within minutes, I had several dozen replies and it was clear that folks were definitely interested in refreshing their lab, especially with a smaller and more modern platform. Over the last few weeks, I have been working with MITXPC (who I have worked with before) on putting together some packages that would appeal to the majority of the community. Initially, I was thinking about three options: system-only (no memory/storage), system with memory (no storage) and system with memory and storage. To be clear, system means complete chassis with CPU and motherboard included. Please see the product links below for more details.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with MITXPC nor am I receiving any referral bonus/compensation for the discounts listed below.