A Look Inside Webster’s Lab

February 2013

Every now and then, people ask me about the lab environment I use to write my articles, answer questions on Experts Exchange and study for Citrix certification exams.  This article will show you what is in my lab.

I believe everyone should have a lab even if it consists of free virtualization software running on a laptop with minimal RAM.  Even a simple lab setup will allow you to install and test software to enhance your skills and knowledge.  My current lab is the continued growth of the first lab I started in 1998 to study for Microsoft NT4 certification exams.  That original lab consisted of separate physical servers and workstations for installing all the various Microsoft, Novell and Linux operating systems.  Now there are five physical servers running XenServer that allow me to install and run many different operating systems.  The equipment in the lab consists of:

• 1 Synology NAS
• 1 Dell Managed Switch
• 5 Lab Servers
• 1 Writing PC
• 1 MacBook Pro
• 1 Apple iPad

In previous articles on my lab setup, I had several large tower servers.  My local utility has gone to time-of-day billing which made it expensive to run the servers during the day.  Plus, the servers generated LOTS of heat.  I sold all the old servers and PCs and replaced them all with small form factor computers.  I also renovated my office closet and turned it into a “server room”.  I had a dedicated 20amp circuit and outlets run and an additional A/C vent run into the new server room.  My HVAC technician placed a thermostat in the server room so that when the temperature rises above 80 it turns on the fan to the main A/C unit to begin circulating cool air into the server room.

QNAP NAS:

The original QNAP NAS is no longer in the lab.  I have had several issues with it and then the system fan failed.  That event caused the unit to overheat, lockup and corrupt all the data on NAS.  I have RMAd the unit with QNAP but never ever intend to use it again.

I installed 4 WDC WD2003FYYS Enterprise class drives to make sure I had QNAP”s recommended drives.

I had updated to the latest firmware: 3.8.1 Build 20121205.

The issues I had:

1. The unit does not always power up properly.
2. When it does not power up I have to do a hard power-off. This requires a volume check when the unit actually powers up.
3. The unit does not always power off coompletely from the GUI.
4. When it does not power off I have to do a hard power-off. This requires a volume check when the unit actually powers up next time.
5. Using the built-in Time Machine backup support, my MacBook Pro automatically detects the TimeMachine backup space. But about 2 or 3 times a week, Time Machine on my Mac states that the backup cannot be validated and requires yet another full backup. BUT, it cannot delete the existing TimeMachine backups that exist. So I have to manually use my Mac to delete them and start over.
6. Using the built-in NFS ISO share, I can only have one connection to an ISO file. If I am building multiple VMs using the same ISO file, none of them will build saying the ISO is corrupt. If I do one VM at a time, I have no problem.
7. I setup a public folder to hold the ISO files and had the same problem: only one connection allowed at a time to an ISO file.
8. Even using 802.3ad networking or any of the other trunking options, I got a max throughput of 45MB/sec. I am using a gig managed switch with all Cat6 cables. I get better throughput on my external USB3 drive attached to my PC.

Synology NAS:

I bought a Synology DS412+ off the recommendation of one of my Active Directory mentors, Andrew S. Baker.

I installed four Western Digital 2TB Enterprise drives (Model WD2003FYYS) in a Synology Hybrid RAID configuration.

http://astore.amazon.com/theacccitadm-20/detail/B002XW44QY

This NAS has two NICs that are configured in an 802.3ad LACP bond.  The Synology unit actually uses both NICs for traffic unlike the QNAP which only used one NIC at a time.

I was able to simultaneously create five VMs using the same Windows Server 2008 R2 ISO.  The iSCSI throughput is much better than the QNAP NAS.  I am now able to use the NAS to create VMs using iSCSI storage.

The QNAP unit took over five minutes to shutdown, when it did shutdown.  The Synology unit takes less than 30 seconds to shutdown and has shutdown properly 100% of the time.  It has also powered up properly 100% of the time.

Dell PowerConnect 5424 Managed Switch:

I bought this switch also from the recommendation of Claudio Rodrigues.  I found one on eBay for around $200 and bought it from:

http://tinyurl.com/Dell5424

Being new to managed switches, I had help from Jarian Gibson and Andrew Baker on getting it configured properly.

Here is a picture of the QNAP NAS and the Dell Switch in my “server room”.

Dell Switch and Synology NAS

Lab Servers Group 1:

All lab servers were ordered from ServersDirect.com.  All the lab servers run XenServer 6.1 with all current public hotfixes.  I e-mailed ServersDirect, gave them my specifications and they custom built the servers for me.  If you are interested, contact:

The two servers in group 1 system components are:

• InWin IW-BL631.300BLP Slim Desktop Chassis with 300W Power Supply
• Intel DQ57TM Desktop Board
• Intel Core i7-870 Lynnfield 2.93GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor
• 16 GB Kingston 1333MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM
• Intel 320 Series 40GB SATAII SSD
• Seagate ST3250312AS 250GB SATA 6GB/S 7200RPM 8MB
• Lite-On 24X Dual Layer DVD+-RW SATA Drive Black

All servers run in headless mode.  These two servers hold my permanent servers: Domain Controller, Citrix Secure Gateway/Web Interface, SQL Server and File Server.

Lab Servers Group 2:

The three servers in group 2 system components are:

• InWin IW-BL631.300BLP Slim Desktop Chassis with 300W Power Supply
• Intel DQ77MK Desktop Board
• Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
• 16 GB Kingston 1333MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM
• Intel 520 Series 120GB SATA6Gb/s SSD
• Intel 520 Series 240GB SATA6Gb/s SSD
• Lite-On 24X Dual Layer DVD+-RW SATA Drive Black

All servers run in headless mode.  These three servers hold whatever virtual machines I am working with.

Each group of servers has their own APC XS 1500 UPS.

Here is a picture of the five servers and two UPS units.

Five XenServer Hosts and APC Units

XenServer Setup:

I have two pools created.  One for the two servers with Intel Core i7-870 processors and one for the three servers with Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge processors.  Each server has two NICs.  NIC0 is the Management NIC and NIC1 is for VMs.  All cables are Cat6A.

Writing Station:

This computer is used for doing customer work, writing articles, answering questions on Experts Exchange, studying for certification exams and running XenCenter to connect to the five lab servers.  This is also a computer bought from ServersDirect.

• InWin IW-BL631.300BLP Slim Desktop Chassis with 300W Power Supply
• Intel DQ67SWB3 Desktop Board
• Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
• 16 GB Kingston 1333MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM
• Intel 320 Series 300GB SATA II
• Two Crucial m4 256GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD (http://astore.amazon.com/theacccitadm-20/detail/B004W2JL2A)
• Lite-On 24X Dual Layer DVD+-RW SATA Drive Black
• Seagate FreeAgent External 1TB USB3 Drive (http://astore.amazon.com/theacccitadm-20/detail/B00829THO6)
• Three Dell UltraSharp U2410 24” Displays (http://astore.amazon.com/theacccitadm-20/detail/B00302DNZ4)
• Unicomp Classic 104 Keyboard [aka The World's Loudest Keyboard] (http://pckeyboard.com/page/product/UB4044A)

The software used on this computer:

• Microsoft Windows 7 Pro x64
• Adobe Acrobat XI Professional (http://astore.amazon.com/theacccitadm-20/detail/B0099F82CK)
• Carbonite
• Dropbox
• Evernote
• NeatDesk
• Office 2010 and Visio 2010
• PerfectIT 2 Pro Edition (My most important writing tool) (http://www.intelligentediting.com/features_matrix.aspx)
• Van Dyke Software SecureCRT 7.0 (http://www.vandyke.com/products/securecrt/)
• XenCenter

Carbonite has saved me a couple of times.  Most recently when the main SSD died and had to be replaced.  Crucial replaced the drive with no hassles.  I installed the replacement SSD and used Carbonite to restore files with absolutely nothing lost.

Dropbox is what I use to share PDFs and PowerShell scripts.  I still have not been given access to my CTP ShareFile access so I stick with Dropbox.

Evernote is used as my repository of notes, links and info I need from any device.

NeatDesk is a wonderful scanner.  I use it to scan all my receipts and legal papers.  It scans fast and is 99.999% accurate even with business cards and double-sided documents.  I do not use NeatCloud as I think it is just way to expensive.

PerfectIT is my most favorite utility.  It forces consistency on long documents.  I don’t write without it.

SecureCRT is to connect to the console of all my XenServer hosts, switch and NAS.  SecureCRT makes it easy to capture screenshots for my articles.

Writing PC

MacBook Pro:

Almost every customer’s Citrix Farm I have worked on in the last several years has Mac clients.  I was tired of having to tell customers that I knew nothing about Macs.  In January 2009, I finally bought a 15” MacBook Pro and loved it.  In October 2010, I upgraded to a 17” MacBook Pro.  In July 2012, I upgraded to a 15” MacBook Pro with Retina Display, 16GB RAM and 768GB SSD.

The software currently being used:

• OS X 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion)
• Camtasia for Mac 2.3
• Carbonite
• Citrix Receiver for Mac V11.6
• Dropbox
• Evernote
• Microsoft Office 2010 for Windows
• Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac
• Snapz Pro X 2.5.1

Apple iPad:

It is an iPad3 64GB 4G/WiFi model.

Main apps:

• Carbonite
• Citrix Receiver for iOS 5.7.1
• Dropbox
• Evernote