Inside my home lab—why I like HPE solutions

[marksimpkins]

SMB marketing manager Mark Simpkins created a home lab based on HPE solutions much like an SMB would use. Here he reports on what he discovered.  

Home lab? How did this happen?

I’m not even sure this can be called a home lab so much as a collection of the IT gear I have arranged over time to meet my needs at home. Maybe that is the definition, after all.

I always build my own desktops, and there always seem to be some other projects to add to the mess: a pihole as a newbie method to keep ads from bugging me and my family; various pi-based modems for bridging HAM radio communications to the internet; switches upstairs, switches downstairs, upgrading to PoE switches and managed switches, different routers and access points to help manage my ever growing and changing networking spiderweb; a home security system with cameras; laptops and gaming systems and even servers, now, are in the mix.

The outcome is that I have a lot of differently branded components, I have learned a lot about which brands I trust, and I phase out the ones I don’t care for so much or that are flakey. I look around and realize I have some “real” gear, now, with a couple HPE ProLiant servers and Aruba access points. I’m in marketing at HPE and helped produce some customer survey results to understand better why customers choose HPE. You can read more for yourself here, but reliability was a common theme that arose from our customers. And I am beginning to understand why.

In a way, the experience was amazingly boring: I like having things just keep working after I set them up.

HPE MicroServer Gen10—the little server that could

MicroServer Gen10 running fileserver

I am using an HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 simply as a file server (openmediavault) for my music collection, and it has just sat there and done its job. The processor is only dual core with 8 GB memory, but my requirements are light, and I have not had issues. I do wish this version had HPE iLO  server management software—at least they brought it back on the Gen10 Plus model. I’m not in a server cleanroom, so I do have to vacuum dust occasionally from the front grill. I enjoy the cube design as well since it sits near my desk in plain sight.

I like having things just keep working after I set them up. This little server just quietly runs along and does the job.

See the uptime. Downtime was me adding a couple drives to mirror.

HPE Aruba acess points—enterprise quality wireless in my house

Set it and forget it. That’s my experience with these access points. I won’t go through all the details which you can read about in one of my previous blogs. Aruba Instant On works great—I don’t have anything to do besides enjoy the reliably great bandwidth. I replaced my router and moved to Aruba Instant On AP12s a while ago, and may adopt their switches in the future.

I like having things just keep working after I set them up. These APs just quietly run along and do the job.

HPE ProLiant DL360p Gen8—my first “real server”

DL360p Gen8. Rear. Running Proxmox as hypervisor.I bought this server used, after likely having been run 24x7 for 4-5 years in a data center somewhere until it came off lease. I upgraded the power supplies to dual 750W after one of the original ones went out. iLO let me know about that while the other power supply kept the server online and functional, just without RPS for a bit.

With dual-socket 8 core Intel Xeon processors and more memory than I am used to having, along with some really fast 10K SAS drives, I use this as a playground for my computing interests and run Proxmox as my hypervisor.

I really am in love with HPE iLO and cannot imagine managing a server without it. I know other vendors have management tools, but this is pretty well thought out and implemented.

HPE iLO 4 showing my older CPUs which are still capable and work reliably.

The ProLiant Gen8 lives in the same closet downstairs which houses my color laser printer, UPS, a 16-port managed switch, freeze dried hiking food for camping and emergencies, along with the wooden hives and other accoutrements which support my beekeeping hobby. That’s pretty tight quarters, but there have been no issues thus far. If I get a fan stoppage due to honey or a small chunk of beeswax, I will relocate it.

I like having things just keep working after I set them up. This beastly server just runs and does the job.

I have to agree with our customers

Now I know firsthand why our customers say they like HPE—the reliability is a real strength in my somewhat limited experience. I’m not running a data center but imagine my little homelab is set up a lot like many small businesses who have grown their IT infrastructure incrementally.

I really do believe in our products, and you will too if you like having things just keep working after you set them up. Drop some comments if you have something to share.

Mark Simpkins
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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