Home Lab Series: Networking

I am also a Cisco network guru as well as being a VMware enthusiast and as such my home lab would not be complete without a rack full of Cisco kit.

For my VMware ESXi visualization hosts I chose a Cisco Catalyst 3560G 48 Port switch which seemed like a good idea when I old had 4 servers each with 6 x 1GbE network connections, but now I have 12 it has become problematic as I have had to move the front end networks e.g. not vMotion or iSCSI off on to a Cisco Catalyst 3560 48 Port switch ( notice the lack of the ‘G’ in the name,  a very sad day ), hopefully though I should be replacing all my Cisco 3560 switches with some nice shiny new Cisco Catalyst 3750E 48 port stack-able switches.

This is a photo of my switches back when I only had 4 x DELL PowerEdge SC1435 servers as ESXi hosts. Just in-case you are wondering, the bottom switch in this photo is a Cisco Catalyst 3560 24 Port PoE switch which I am using for my Cisco VOIP phones.

My home lab networking is getting an upgrade, I have recently purchased a new pair of stackable layer 3 cisco switches and also a new cisco router.

Total cost of all components:

Category 5E Cables – Blue – Multiple VLAN Networks

25 x £2.00 = £50.00 ( i bought 1 extra to get a price break and also as a spare )

Category 5E Cables – Black – vMotion

25 x £2.00 = £50.00 ( i bought 1 extra to get a price break and also as a spare )

Category 5E Cables – White – iSCSI

25 x £2.00 = £50.00 ( i bought 1 extra to get a price break and also as a spare )

CISCO 1921 Advanced Service Router v2

1 x £300

CISCO Catalyst 3750E-PoE 48 Port

1 x £600

CISCO Catalyst 3750E-PoE 48 Port

1 x £600

CISCO Catalyst 3560G 48 Port

1 x £600

CISCO Catalyst 3560 48 Port

1 x £350

CISCO Catalyst 3560 24 Port PoE

1 x £150

Therefore I spent £1,250 per on my physical networking to support my Home Lab