All, Related to my thread about home data centers, what are folks using to store compute gear in? Mine sits in two racks in my second bedroom. Cooled by ambient AC. Has anyone built a dedicated room? What resources did you use to do so? Are their any standards to reference etc?
I am in the process of building a house. I designed a room that can accommodate three 24 x 36 inch cabinets or four post racks. I will likely install a APC 2200 watt UPS in the bottom of two of the racks, and the third will be a cross-connect field, patch panels, etc. The room will have a small, ductless ac unit, maybe a ton or a little more, which should be good for about 3 to 5 kw of load. The house is backed up by a 48 kw genset with an auto transfer switch. The weakness will be only one provider of connectivity.
-----Original Message----- From: Charles N Wyble [mailto:charles@knownelement.com] Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 8:19 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Home computer rooms
All,
Related to my thread about home data centers, what are folks using to store compute gear in?
Mine sits in two racks in my second bedroom. Cooled by ambient AC.
Has anyone built a dedicated room? What resources did you use to do so? Are their any standards to reference etc?
On 08/12/2011 07:49 PM, Alex Rubenstein wrote:
I am in the process of building a house. Cool. Will you have wire closets? What about home audio? Security?
I designed a room that can accommodate three 24 x 36 inch cabinets or four post racks.
Downstairs? Basement?
I will likely install a APC 2200 watt UPS in the bottom of two of the racks, and the third will be a cross-connect field, patch panels, etc.
Cool. Will you have whole house UPS / surge suppression ?
The house is backed up by a 48 kw genset with an auto transfer switch.
Beautiful.
The weakness will be only one provider of connectivity.
What? No wifi/wimax backup link?
On 8/12/2011 8:40 PM, Charles N Wyble wrote:
Details? What kind of power/cooling? What kind/amount of gear?
First the layout, house is 2500 sq ft, with an a frame attic, on a raised foundation, no basement (earthquake zone) server room was created between the pantry and the dining room, one wall backs up to the wall ovens, one to a hallway, one to the pantry, and theres the hidden door (flush) to the dining room. the rack is mounted on a wooden platform that is designed to break away and drop 2' to the ground below if there is an earthquake, dont want the rack to come tumbling out and land one the little one. cooling is provided via running some pvc underground for about 100' (7 x 1" pvc) and the ground cools it about 20 degrees below ambient. if it get above 90 outside the ac kicks in. (yep Itry to minimize my electric bill, hence all my bulbs are LED). I ran all the cables myself, drilled all the holes, and layed all the pipe the server room is about 40' from my office, and there are three additional bedrooms (names are, porn room, jungle room, and bedroom) as well as kitchen, dining room, living room, garage, and back patio. ever room in the house has the following drops 2 cat6, 2 coax, 1 cat6 poe there are various wireless cameras around the perimeter ever room has two recessed speakers in the ceiling as well in the server room Ihave the following Brocade turboiron 24x switch for office use only brocade fastiron network switch for the house (coming shortly is a brocade vdx) and no I do not work for brocade just happened to like their stuff 4 apc pdus, 2 dell t5500's nas device (homebuilt) with 10TB of storage coax injector, signal collector (antenna is on the roof) dummy coax switch juniper firewall appliance one wap (forgot the make, but it aint netgear (there is another wap in the garage and one out back on the patio) ( I might have a piece of cisco hardware laying around as a door stop someplace, will have to check) just kidding, nothing against cisco, used to run their waps here is what I accomplished with all this I can run a virtual computer from any room in the house using kvm with splice without the need for a real computer in each room I can watch any of my wireless security cameras on any tv or computer I can watch any movie that resides on the nas on any tv that has the dlna (Ithink thats it) protocol built in I can watch any move on any computer screen in the house and even transfer the playing movie without interruption to different screen I inject otatv into my coax starting at channel 10, and the cameras are injected at channels 1,2,4,5 I can control movies/music and volume from and dnla speaker or web enabled device in the office Ihave a homebuilt pc (one of them little shuttle ones) (hence the need for fiber) and some kick ass speakers (cant work without listening to the blues) my goals for 1012 are be able to send the output of the music/movie to any speaker in the house, has to be able to be controlled via an andriod device (which means web based) currently its a manual process be able to watch anything that goes over the coax on any computer screen get a backup generator in place finish replacing all the outlets and switches with smart devices (already started) hook up the sprinkler system to some sort of logically calculated device PS. I have yet to watch a movie, or tv for more than 10 minutes, Inever had a TV until me and the other half moved in together, (she likes it too much, for me its books) PPS. if there is a coax guru here and you know how to do coax switching (not a splitter) please ping me offlist hope this helps
Charles N Wyble wrote:
All,
Related to my thread about home data centers, what are folks using to store compute gear in?
Mine sits in two racks in my second bedroom. Cooled by ambient AC.
Has anyone built a dedicated room? What resources did you use to do so? Are their any standards to reference etc?
Old IBM 32U cabinet in the unfinished basement, half a dozen older IBM x-series and NAS, Cisco 2950/3550, old terminal server, UPS (have to upgrade), bix patch panel, etc. Simple and cheap stuff I've managed to cobble together over the years. A lot mirroring the configuration (not the hardware) at work. Eventual projects include building the room around it and tying the phone into it all. It's all for fun, really.
On 08/12/2011 09:02 PM, J wrote:
Charles N Wyble wrote:
All,
Old IBM 32U cabinet in the unfinished basement, half a dozen older IBM x-series and NAS, Cisco 2950/3550, old terminal server, UPS (have to upgrade), bix patch panel, etc. Nice.
I currently lack a patch panel. I think I have one somewhere. Maybe.
Simple and cheap stuff I've managed to cobble together over the years. A lot mirroring the configuration (not the hardware) at work.
Yeah I've built up my collection over a few years.
Eventual projects include building the room around it
Hah
and tying the phone into it all.
How so? PBX?
It's all for fun, really.
Yes. Exactly. I've got a small production network, and a huge lab network to mess around with.
13.8.2011 3:18, Charles N Wyble kirjoitti:
All,
Related to my thread about home data centers, what are folks using to store compute gear in?
Mine sits in two racks in my second bedroom. Cooled by ambient AC.
Mine sits in a small room / closet under the stairs, in an on-purpose built for this. But it is a little cramped with the current amount of equipment I have.
Has anyone built a dedicated room? What resources did you use to do so? Are their any standards to reference etc?
I do not believe there are any standards applicable to this, though I've sometimes wondered if someone should write a guideline document for recommendations concerning what kind of setup makes sense from a long term perspective. Cat6, tubing to be able to replace even those, enough space & ventilation for the equipment, power, etc. I chose to put my IT equipment in a different utility room than the electrical/heating/etc equipment. In most new houses the two are in the same room. Here's some more information on what i did & some pictures: http://www.arkko.com/rakennusprojekti/kotiverkko.jpg <http://www.arkko.com/rakennusprojekti/networkdesign.html> http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.74638548291.75895.702428291&l=940df4dde9&type=1 <http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.74638548291.75895.702428291&l=940df4dde9&type=1>http://www.arkko.com/rakennusprojekti/networkdesign.html Jari
On 08/13/2011 01:20 AM, Jari Arkko wrote:
13.8.2011 3:18, Charles N Wyble kirjoitti:
All,
Related to my thread about home data centers, what are folks using to store compute gear in?
Mine sits in two racks in my second bedroom. Cooled by ambient AC.
Mine sits in a small room / closet under the stairs, in an on-purpose built for this. But it is a little cramped with the current amount of equipment I have.
I can imagine!
I do not believe there are any standards applicable to this, though I've sometimes wondered if someone should write a guideline document for recommendations concerning what kind of setup makes sense from a long term perspective. Cat6, tubing to be able to replace even those, enough space & ventilation for the equipment, power, etc. I chose to put my IT equipment in a different utility room than the electrical/heating/etc equipment. In most new houses the two are in the same room.
Right.
Here's some more information on what i did & some pictures:
http://www.arkko.com/rakennusprojekti/kotiverkko.jpg <http://www.arkko.com/rakennusprojekti/networkdesign.html> http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.74638548291.75895.702428291&l=940df4dde9&type=1
Amazing stuff! Thank you for such incredible detail and sharing. Much appreciated. My documentation leaves something to be desired. It's being reworked into a living system so I don't have to constantly update it.
I'm borrowing a room at mom's place for this presently :-D, as the 1 bedroom apartment was a bit too small! It has 2 racks -- a 2post and a full server cabinent. The racks are physically on separate sides of the room, so I've got a custom cable tray running along the walls, that's about a foot below the ceiling. Between the racks are 24-port patch panels for cross-connect needs. Power is the fun part: I installed a 50AMP, 240V, subpanel in the above room (with permits/inspection), and am feeding 1 x 240 to each rack and also 1 x 120 to the 2-post. Each rack's power is handled by remotely managed power controllers. I've found that maintaining UPS batteries became too expensive, given the age and present value of my gear, so everything is direct w/o UPS support. Since I've got full power control, most of the gear remains off until I'm actively using it for studies. To conserve electric use, I rarely use additional AC, though I have a portable unit in the room for when the need arises -- average temp runs about 85 in that room. The routing gear is a mix of Cisco 2600s, 3600s, and 4500s (yep, those are a little old!); The switching gear is a mix of Cisco 3550s, 3560s, and 2950s; The server gear is mostly IBM xSeries, in the age range of about 5-7 years old. Connectivity from my apartment to the lab is over a site-to-site VPN. I've also got a Cisco call manager express (on a 1760) running my mom's phone service and have phones throughout her house and my apartment. Production storage is on a QNAP NAS back at my apartment. The above room is about 180 square feet. It sits next to the garage and kitchen, and to make it look more official I took out the door and replaced it w/ a plastic doorway like you see in big grocery freezers. The plastic made it easier to get in/out with gear without scratching up the house and it also helps mute out some of the fan-noise. David. On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 8:18 PM, Charles N Wyble <charles@knownelement.com> wrote:
All,
Related to my thread about home data centers, what are folks using to store compute gear in?
Mine sits in two racks in my second bedroom. Cooled by ambient AC.
Has anyone built a dedicated room? What resources did you use to do so? Are their any standards to reference etc?
On 08/13/2011 08:26 AM, David Swafford wrote:
I'm borrowing a room at mom's place for this presently :-D, as the 1 bedroom apartment was a bit too small!
I've got a two bedroom apartment currently. Seriously considering a 3 bedroom place. So I can have a dedicated server room/office and a guest room. Right now guest room serves as server room and living room is the office.
It has 2 racks -- a 2post and a full server cabinent. The racks are physically on separate sides of the room, so I've got a custom cable tray running along the walls, that's about a foot below the ceiling.
Nice. Another reason that apartments are annoying. Limited mods. Though one could make the mods and just patch holes when they leave. I wanted to drill a hole to the outside at my apartment and patch when we left. The wife said no. LOL. It's cool though, cause she doesn't bat an eye when I mention buying a 72U rack. :)
Between the racks are 24-port patch panels for cross-connect needs.
Hmmm. Between racks you mean? Or from ports in wall to switch?
Power is the fun part: I installed a 50AMP, 240V, subpanel in the above room (with permits/inspection), and am feeding 1 x 240 to each rack and also 1 x 120 to the 2-post.
Ah yes. Power. This is what will drive me to a colo. I'm sure of it. I don't want to rely on household wiring for heavy duty loads.
Each rack's power is handled by remotely managed power controllers. I've found that maintaining UPS batteries became too expensive, given the age and present value of my gear, so everything is direct w/o UPS support. Since I've got full power control, most of the gear remains off until I'm actively using it for studies.
Excellent. This is what I do as well. Though the PDUs that I picked up don't work with my current wiring. :(
To conserve electric use, I rarely use additional AC, though I have a portable unit in the room for when the need arises -- average temp runs about 85 in that room.
Nice.
The routing gear is a mix of Cisco 2600s, 3600s, and 4500s (yep, those are a little old!); The switching gear is a mix of Cisco 3550s, 3560s, and 2950s; The server gear is mostly IBM xSeries, in the age range of about 5-7 years old.
Perfectly suitable for a wide variety of applications. Only things worth swapping out on a regular basis are drives.
Connectivity from my apartment to the lab is over a site-to-site VPN. What kind of bandwidth in between?
I've also got a Cisco call manager express (on a 1760) running my mom's phone service and have phones throughout her house and my apartment.
Nice. I've not dabbled with Cisco voip at all. Just Freeswitch/Asterisk (abandoned Asterisk and exclusively Freeswitch these days).
Production storage is on a QNAP NAS back at my apartment.
I believe this is the second mention of QNAP in this thread.
The above room is about 180 square feet. It sits next to the garage and kitchen, and to make it look more official I took out the door and replaced it w/ a plastic doorway like you see in big grocery freezers. The plastic made it easier to get in/out with gear without scratching up the house and it also helps mute out some of the fan-noise.
Excellent idea. Do you have a ramp of some sort to bring gear in? -- Charles N Wyble charles@knownelement.com @charlesnw on twitter http://blog.knownelement.com Building alternative,global scale,secure, cost effective bit moving platform for tomorrows alternate default free zone.
Once upon a time, Charles N Wyble <charles@knownelement.com> said:
Related to my thread about home data centers, what are folks using to store compute gear in?
Mine sits in two racks in my second bedroom. Cooled by ambient AC.
I have an old pdp-8 rack (I didn't get the actual computer, just the rack, but it does still have the DEC faceplate), and the room is cooled by the regular central A/C. I've considered dedicated A/C for this room (just a small spare bedroom really), but I haven't found anything that is economical and quiet. -- Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
I've got a Danby portable type dual hose unit which works very well for my office. The single hose units are really no good for getting a room cool as they continually pull in outside air. It's pretty quiet, a lot quieter than the cheaper no-name unit it replaced. 12000BTU - it does really need it's own 15A/120V circuit because of the size. On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 4:52 PM, Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> wrote:
Once upon a time, Charles N Wyble <charles@knownelement.com> said:
Related to my thread about home data centers, what are folks using to store compute gear in?
Mine sits in two racks in my second bedroom. Cooled by ambient AC.
I have an old pdp-8 rack (I didn't get the actual computer, just the rack, but it does still have the DEC faceplate), and the room is cooled by the regular central A/C. I've considered dedicated A/C for this room (just a small spare bedroom really), but I haven't found anything that is economical and quiet.
-- Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
-- "Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds." -- Samuel Butler
participants (9)
-
Alex Rubenstein -
Chaim Rieger -
Charles N Wyble -
Chris Adams -
David Swafford -
J -
Jari Arkko -
Michael Loftis -
Randy Bush