Need mobo/ram/cpu recommendations for a small desktop type vm lab ... For around $300.
This is mainly for testing out security tools etc and the guest OS's won't be doing anything too hardcore initially. Maybe DNS / AD and some internal virtual networking appliances as such as fws switches etc.
I already have a case and PSU handy ... Just looking for CPU and motherboards that play well with esxi ...
Thanks.
Well you will want a cpu and mobo that supports IOMMU for hardware pass through so a Non (K) intel or most AMD CPUs support it as well.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113287
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130677
In theory both of those should support it. you may want to ask newegg/msi to be sure
Ram I would get as much as you can. If you have some old HDDs laying around you can put them into JBOD so you don't need to worry about what drive goes where in you file system
Also have you looked into using Xen instead of esxi? It is free and open source. Also Citrix has a turnkey version of ths. Xen is what Amazon uses for it's cloud services. There is more of a real world use for learning it (money making).
Just get an fx6300 or an fx 8320, Asus m5a97, and as much as ram you can, but 12 gigs would already be great (3x4gb)
I'm not locked into esxi.
Anyone have any yes vs no arguments between the two?
I'll look into those components you listed above.
Thanks.
VMware wants people to be locked into their softwar Vsphere and the such but with Xen it is a lot more freedom (it is free and open source) to use what you want.