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Interesting VMware Homelab Kits for 2024

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Where did 2024 go!? I can not believe there is only a few more months left before the end of the year!

During VMware Explore US, I had several folks ask whether I was going to publish a 2024 edition of my annual interesting VMware homelab kit blog post, simliar to HERE and HERE for 2023 and 2023 respectively. While I had planned for this originally, I was pretty busy this year and getting hands on with some of the latest Intel 14th Generation systems did not happen until much later and hence why I had not put anything together.

I was recently reminded of this request again and it feels like the right time to summarize the various kits that I have come across and/or have gotten hands on throughout the year.

Homelab Trends

There are also some interesting trends that I have observed in 2024, especially as it pertains to VMware Homelabs/Development/Testing purposes:

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Updated Dashboard for VMware Community Homelabs using Dashimo

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While working on some data analysis for an internal project, I was looking for a better way to summarize and provide some visualizations of the raw data for better consumption.

I also wanted to automate this process, so that I could easily build reports or dashboards regardless of the frequency of requests and/or dataset size. After a bit of searching, I came across a very awesome PowerShell Module called Dashimo, which builds on top of another PowerShell Module called PSWriteHTML, which provides a framework for creating HTML reports.

After playing around with Dashimo over the weekend and successfully using it for my internal project, I thought I would update the dashboard I provide today for the VMware Community Homelabs Project, where users from our community can submit their VMware Homelab BOM (Build of Materials) that can benefit the broader community.

I really like the simplicity and ease of use that Dashimo provides and the dashboards that you can build are all interactive, so it is not just a static image. For those interested in seeing Dashimo in action or if you want to check out the new dashboard for the VMware Community Homelabs, you can access it at: https://lamw.github.io/homelab/

Slick Jonsbo D31 computer case with embedded LCD screen for homelab

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Last month, I noticed a very interesting DIY (Do it Yourself) computer build from fellow colleague Cyprien Laplace, who you might know from the ESXi-Arm team.


No surprise, the build was for a new ESXi-Arm homelab using an ASRock Ampere Altra (ALTRAD8UD-1L2T) and configured with 64 CPUs and 128GB of memory! 🔥

At first, when Cyprien was sharing his build updates on Twitter/X, it looked like a standard DIY project but then several folks noticed he had a pretty unique computer case that included a built-in LCD screen! The classic grey/yellow screen pictured above running ESXi-Arm looks amazing and certainly useful for those wanting to remove the dependency of an external monitor.

If you are in the market for building or upgrading your homelab and want a unique computer case, check out th Jonsbo D31 which comes in both Black or White with two different models:

Black

White

Cyprien's ESXi-Arm build also recently won the best homelab community build (#3) project that was sponsored by Newegg and Ampere, so congrats on the W! 🥳🖥️🐈‍⬛