Pen-Testing Paradise? ----> Run 100 VMs with Anstle?

roninkai

I came across this product called "Anstle" a while ago, forgot about it, but now seriously considering it.
They claim to replace your webhosting with your own private cloud server that can run up to 100 VMs.

I've been digging in and reading reviews, and so far everything seems very promising. I found
myself discouraged from using my Dell PowerEdge servers in my utility closet for any meaningful
web dev, IT training, or pen-testing as they are loud, hot, and take forever to boot up.

The more I learn about Anstle, the more I want to bite the bullet and purchase. But hoping
someone on here had heard of it or perhaps even owns one, and can comment on how they like it.

I'm thinking this would be great for building a pen-testing lab, or cert lab for MCSE, etc. I find my
existing lab too clunky and end up fixing some new issue vs actual time training.

Anyway, would love to get thoughts and feedback if you've had a chance to review Anstle or own one alreayd.

roninkai

Nobody eh....ok

johannes_antsle

Hey dragonsden,

saw your thread here by pure change, happy to help. Not to deceive anyone: It is always a mix of VMs and Containers. antsle was optimized for Linux and containers so performance will always depend on what you run inside your antlets (VPS) of course. For lab environments, antsle really is a no-brainer. Happy to help answer any other questions you or anyone else has!

Phalanx

So despite the website going on about how amazing Antsle is, and the video showing it's VM-based, I still don't get how a box that size with no fans or vents (I guess the whole thing is a giant heatsink) can run 100 VMs simultaneously, and apparently better than an actual server. Am I missing something? The website seems very vague.

roninkai

I want to give it a try but my hang up is possible performance. The specs seems poor for running VMs efficiently. 32 GB of RAM won't really run 100 VMs all that fast. Unless there is some other magic going on. Wish I could test run one remotely before dropping the dough.

p@r0tuXus

Phalanx wrote: »

So despite the website going on about how amazing Antsle is, and the video showing it's VM-based, I still don't get how a box that size with no fans or vents (I guess the whole thing is a giant heatsink) can run 100 VMs simultaneously, and apparently better than an actual server. Am I missing something? The website seems very vague.

You may have missed something on the site: FAQ - antsle Docs
The section titled: How many virtual servers can I run on antsle? Can it run 100 servers?

Btw... I love that people in the industry that make training courses, hardware, etc. visit TE. Just awesomeness...

roninkai

Just found this write-up. Kinda helped explain somethings to consider for those of us (myself), concerned with specs. Im still hesitant that if I buy now, that in a few months during black friday season, they'll release a 128 GB model with DDR4 and all kinds of upgrades. I usually don't buy tech in Q3/Q4 for this reason.

Anyway, decent overview:
https://rsts11.com/2017/03/29/first-look-checking-out-the-antsle-personal-cloud-server/

I mainly need an easy to use dev server for web projects, so this meets that criteria. I like that its very portable and I can take my dev in my backpack and go work anywhere with it. Ill probably still have the 2U servers for ESXi stuff, since those servers are crazy cheap still. (I paid only $100 for a 32GB 1TB Poweredge, so I cant complain other than noise).

EANx

Compute is compute and how many instances you're able to run varies depending on what you're running. Looking at their FAQ, I find nothing to disaagree with but I can see where people might think the laws of physics don't apply. So they note you can run 100 instances on the box with 16 GB of RAM, using the example of 10 VMs and 90 containers.The minimum requirements for Server 2012 R2 are 512 MB of RAM so 10 of them is 5 GB, leaving 11 GB for the containers (and hypervisor). Containers can get pretty darned memory efficient given they share the same base OS and simply split out the processes unique to their function. If you want to work with containers, I hope you like Linux because that's all you have, no option for 2016 micro servers here.

So can you run 100 individual server instances? Probably. Would it be a good pen-test test-bed, probably not.

roninkai

I will probably pick one up just for dev projects / portability. If I really love it, maybe id get another down the road dedicated for pentesting. Not sure Id ever need to run 100 VMs at once anyway. But a decent lab may have 20+ depending on what you are trying to accomplish.

ADSNELLC

So I bought 2 of them. I am the developer for ADSNELLC Development. For a real good deal ..wait till around a holiday ..get on their mailing list and watch for the "BOGO" free deal. With a "Grow Plan" you buy one Antsle of a custom design you choose and get a second model like "free" as long as you purchase the Grow Support plan with it. It's only for a year the support plan and does not auto renew. It was the deal. Purchased a Antsle One X Ultra 2-2TB SSD with 2-1TB SSD m2 cache 128 gb RAM and got another exact server copy  free. The price of the Anstle + plan was about $11,000 USD. The black unit is my main unit and a red unit is my cloned duplicated backup for emergencies. I use recording studio equipment with Pro Tools with a USB 3.0 pass thru into the Antsle to produce studio recording into the cloud with no latency. I also use Tracktion for CentOS as a cloud recorder for this with the USB pass thru. So I use a USB sound card plugged into the Antsle server and the data is passed thru the USB pass thru to the Windows Pro Tools based container. The cases can run hot to the touch, so you would need to keep ventilation well in mind. I installed Webmin on the Antsle as a extra management tool. I purchased a WD easystore 12TB external hard drive and mounted it as additional storage if you need it.

bigdogz

This sounds like a good deal but $11,000 USD is a little pricey for me. I would have to do some research to see if I get a good ROI from this product other than just a write off for my business.

roninkai

So I bought 2 of these since my original post. The first was over $3k and the other I got on eBay for ~$700. After owning these for a few years, I do think it is a good product. However, the software they run on isnt all that. I wiped the AntsleOS and installed Proxmox and now love it. $11K is pretty steep and I do think they over price their products. But I think it does a good job of being your own personal server/cloud without the electricity costs.