Dynamips hardware advice

supercooldude

I'm going to start studying for BSCI and I decided to buy a powerful used rack server, install linux and run dynamips on it, along with a few VMs.
By the time I pass BSCI and start studying for BCMSN, I will have saved money to get 2 L3 switches hopefully.
In the meantime, my budget for the server is about 400 USD and my choices on a local ebay-like auctions site come down to the following:

- DELL PowerEdge 6650, 4 x Xeon(MP) 2.0GHZ + 8GB + 2 x SCSI 72GB + Quad Port GigaEthernet
- IBM e-Server 326m, 2 x Opteron 2.4GHz + 16GB + 2 x SCSI 72GB + Quad Port GigaEthernet

Those of you guys who know how resource-hungry dynamips is, which server would you pick?

Edit: Oh, and things like electricity, noise or space don't really matter since I am allowed to install it in our testing rack.

Netstudent

16 GB of RAM seems way overkill. I would go with the quad core and 8gigs of RAM.

dynamik

I'd go with the Dell as well.

Sepiraph

I also don't think you'd 16 GB of RAM, I don't have any issue running Dynamips on 2GB of RAM with Vista emulating a few 7200s but then I haven't ran a really large lab either. According to the Dynamips tutorial, there is also a physical memory limit http://dynagen.org/tutorial.htm:

because OS limits a single process to 2 GB of virtual memory on 32-bit Windows, and 3 GB on 32-bit Linux.

However, what you can do is run multiple Dynamips process or use VM, but even then I doubt you'd ever use up to 16GB, or arguably even 8GB for that matter. +1 on getting the quad since you'd likely be more limited by CPU than by memory if you do run very large lab.

mikej412

Double check the model numbers and processor/speeds that were available for those models.

And if you can find out what kind of memory they have and the processor sockets -- that would make the choice a lot easier.

Those could be old Xeon MPs from 2002....

Just based on just what you've mentioned, I'd go for the IBM eServer 326m.

supercooldude

Thanks everyone. Here are a few more details about the servers.

- DELL PowerEdge 6650, 4 x Single Core Xeon(MP) 2.0GHz (FSB400MHz) + 8GB (PC1600 DDR SDRAM Registered DIMM 1GB x 8 )
- IBM e-Server 326m, 2 x Opteron 250 Single Core 2.4GHz + 16GB (PC3200R DDR SDRAM Registered CL3 ECC 2GB x 8 )

Although I do want to take more CPUs over more RAM, I am kind of leaning toward the opteron server because of its faster memory and its being 64bit.
I am not sure but the Xeon MPs seem to be 32bit, so I can't help wondering how would it be possible to take full advantage of more than 4GB of RAM...

Any more comments?

marlon23

My question is, why would you need such a powerfull hw/so many router instances anyway.. I can 14 routers (Internetwork Expert CCIE dynamips topology) on Core Duo & 2GB RAM & GNU/Linux. IMHO Core 2 Duo or Quadro with 4GB RAM should be sufficient even for some crazy topologies

supercooldude

marlon23 wrote:

My question is, why would you need such a powerfull hw/so many router instances anyway.. I can 14 routers (Internetwork Expert CCIE dynamips topology) on Core Duo & 2GB RAM & GNU/Linux. IMHO Core 2 Duo or Quadro with 4GB RAM should be sufficient even for some crazy topologies

To answer your question, my computer is quite old running P4 2GHz with 1GB Ram.
So I figured if I got a powerful machine, I could run on it as many labs as I wished, along with multiple VMs...
Thanks for the advice anyway.

supercooldude

Thanks for the input everyone. I eneded up buying the following machine for roughly 380$ shipping and rack rails included.
HP ProLiant DL145 G2
CPU: 2 x DualCore Opteron 275 2.2GHz (Total 4 cores)
RAM: 8GB (8 x 1GB PC3200R ECC Reg)
HDD: 2 x 73GB (15K U320)
I just got it yesterday, so I'll probably install it over the weekend.

tiersten

Nice system. Hope you've got somewhere far away to put it though. Its not going to be very quiet

cisco_trooper

That 2GB limit can be extended on Windows.

supercooldude

tiersten wrote:

Nice system. Hope you've got somewhere far away to put it though. Its not going to be very quiet

Thanks. You're right, it's very loud.
I was intending to put it in our company's testing rack, but I decided to keep it at home.
I will put it the room on the far end of my apartment, in the closet.

supercooldude

cisco_trooper wrote:

That 2GB limit can be extended on Windows.

I wasn't aware of that. Thanks.
I am going to run the server on 64bit linux. That way I won't have to worry about memory issues.

tiersten

supercooldude wrote:

cisco_trooper wrote:

That 2GB limit can be extended on Windows.

I wasn't aware of that. Thanks.
I am going to run the server on 64bit linux. That way I won't have to worry about memory issues.

The 2GB limit is only for 32 bit Windows which would be capped at 4GB of total memory anyway unless you've got a server version running.

Under certain circumstances, you can get a 3GB process space in 32 bit Windows by using the /3GB switch. There are many issues with turning it on and actually using it which is why its just not worth it these days. Run a 64 bit version of Windows and enjoy your 8TB process space