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Project USB to SDDC - Part 2

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In the previous article, I provided some background on the origin of the project. In this article, we will now focus on the technical details and how the solution actually works.

Hardware

This solution was originally developed against an Intel NUC but I had designed it to be generic so that it could run on any system which meets the minimum requirements which is just having two disks (HDD & SSD or two SSDs) which is used to create a vSAN datastore.

Here is the BOM for the Intel NUC that we had used:

During the Sydney VMUG, we had did a live demo using an Intel NUC. Prior to the Melbourne VMUG, fellow VMware colleague Tai Ratcliff reached out and offered to let us borrow his Supermicro kit for the demo which was great as the hardware was much beefier than the NUC. Thanks Tai!


I had already been hearing great things about E200-8D platform but I had not had the opportunity to get my hands on the system to play with. After only spending a little bit of time with the platform while prepping for the VMUG event, I can see why is a pretty slick system for a vSphere/vSAN based home lab, especially if you need to go beyond 32GB of memory which is where the Intel NUCs currently max out at.

The other appealing features for this platform is that it comes with 2x10GbE, 2x1GBe and an IPMI interface for remote management which is a huge benefit for not needing to connect an external monitor and keyboard. The system is also Xeon based w/6-Cores and can go all the way up to 128GB of memory. Tai had also recently published a blog article comparing the Supermicro E200-8D and the Intel NUC, which I think is worth a read if you are deciding between these two platforms.

Note: If you are considering purchasing the Supermicro E200-8D or any other system for that matter, check out this exclusive vGhetto discount here.

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Exclusive vGhetto discount on homelab hardware from MITXPC

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On a regular basis I already receive a number of inquires from both internal VMware folks as well as external partners and customers about VMware homelabs and the type of hardware that can be used. After demo'ing our recent USB to SDDC project, the requests have literally tripled! Most folks are generally inquiring BOM details and/or where to purchase the Intel NUC or the SuperMicro E200-8D.

In particular, the SuperMicro E200-8D has probably received the most amount of interest lately. In fact, I am also interested in one after having an opportunity to play with one during the Melbourne VMUG. One thing I had noticed while talking to several colleagues who have purchased this system both locally within the Bay Area as well as overseas such as Australia was that one particular reseller kept coming up over and over again. That vendor was MITXPC which is a local bay area company located over in Fremont which specializes in Mini-ITX systems.

The reason MITXPC was being used by the majority of these folks was simple, they had the best price for the SuperMicro E200-8D which was significantly cheaper than other vendors including Amazon.

Vendor Price
E200-8D on MITXPC $799 USD ($783.02 w/discount code)
E200-8D on Amazon $849 USD

Having heard good things about MITXPC, I decided to reach out to them and see if there was anything special they could do for the VMware Community. I was able to get a special discount code that would offer folks an additional 2% off their entire purchase at MITXPC. For those of you who have been holding off on a refresh your home lab or itching to build your own, this is a great time! If you would like to take advantage of this offer, simply use the discount code VIRTUALLYGHETTO2OFF when you check out. I would like to give a huge thanks to Eric Yui of MITXPC for working with me on this and helping out the VMware Community.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with MITXPC.

Project USB to SDDC - Part 1

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A couple of weeks back, Alan Renouf and I co-presented at the Sydney and Melbourne VMUG UserCon, here are some great write-ups about the events here and here. We were very honored to have been invited out and to also deliever the closing keynote. Having traveled halfway around the world, we thought it was only fitting to share something really special.

For the last couple of months, we had been working on a small pet project that I personally had been referring to as the "vGhetto SDDC". This was not something we had not shared with anyone before and thought the VMUG UserCon was the perfect venue to demo our new project. For the session, we decided to rename the project/session to USB to SDDC (better ring than the previous title) which might give you a hint on what the project might be about.

The inception for this project really stemmed from the work we did at last years VMworld Hackathon which was another idea that both Alan and I had came up and worked with the VMware Code team to deliver at both VMworld US and Europe. Like all great Automation stories, the motivation for this project was born out of pure laziness. With the huge success of the Hackathon at VMworld US, there was a huge demand for us to also deliver it again at VMworld Europe.

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