Home lab / rack & Electricity bills

Hey guys,

Just interested as to how running your home lab affects your electricity bills?I've recently bought my own place and until now I've always rented accommodation which included "rent & bills".

Now I actually have to manage my money a bit better I guess running several routers and switches on a daily basis is going to affect my electricity bill quite significantly? or not? Plus the fact electricity is already extortionate in the UK and predicted to rise by 40% in the next 12 months!

I know all about dynamips, never actually used it yet as I had 3 routers & 3 switches for CCNA, so is dynamips a better option for studying towards the NP?

I am planning on doing the CCNP Networking Academy at a university so I'll have lab access there once a week, therefore anything I do at home is to reinforce learning.

Malc

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Turgon

malcybood wrote:

Hey guys,

Just interested as to how running your home lab affects your electricity bills?I've recently bought my own place and until now I've always rented accommodation which included "rent & bills".

Now I actually have to manage my money a bit better I guess running several routers and switches on a daily basis is going to affect my electricity bill quite significantly? or not? Plus the fact electricity is already extortionate in the UK and predicted to rise by 40% in the next 12 months!

I know all about dynamips, never actually used it yet as I had 3 routers & 3 switches for CCNA, so is dynamips a better option for studying towards the NP?

I am planning on doing the CCNP Networking Academy at a university so I'll have lab access there once a week, therefore anything I do at home is to reinforce learning.

Malc

These things don't draw a lot of current. If you are really worried about it just don't have everything running all the time! My rack is turned off most of the time, and when running I just have what I need turned on. Im more concerned about the noise personally than the electricity bill. The fewer things running the quieter it is for all concerned at home. It get's stuffy too in the spare room with all those devices switched on.

I don't use dynamips myself. I have a server set aside for dynamips but just haven't had the free time to mess around and try and get it all working. Dynamips is popular and I may put something together post lab but Im kind of used to using real equipment for my studies over the years. Some people go the extent of running dynamips on a laptop. I shall probably just have it on a server at home. I just want to build one to satisfy my curiosity when I have a chance.

When I do build a dynamips server, I will try and do the ubuntu thing. I hear it performs well providing you know how to set it up (I don't yet).

APA

Turgon wrote:

Im more concerned about the noise personally than the electricity bill. The fewer things running the quieter it is for all concerned at home. It get's stuffy too in the spare room with all those devices switched on.

I'll second that!!!! noise and excess heat is the main factors I worry about...... so only turn on what I need as well

Plus I'm still a young bum at home with the old's so my contribution to the bills isn't as much as it would be if I was living on my own

Paul Boz

I used to run my lab 24/7 and had my internet going through it. Half of my lab sits were just making sure the internet still worked when I was done. I quickly got tired of that and started using a minimal setup for internet (2621 internet router to a 3550 switch) and put Dynamips on my laptop so that I could take it to and from work or wherever and have my labs.

There's no point in running your home lab 24/7 b/c it isn't a production network if your inet isn't going through it.

Plazma

my lab consists of 2 L2 switches (2950-48 and 2960-4

and a quad core dynamips server.. i leave them running all the time.. but for my server i got an 80 certified PSU so it really helps on the power usage.. the switches i only turn on when i need them.

malcybood

Thanks for the responses guys.

With my CCNA lab I always switched it on for the time I was using it only, but that was almost every day for a good few hours labbing it up.

I'll use my existing kit for BCMSN and see how much power it uses and take it from there.

Cheers

Paul Boz

The power usage is negligible. You'd be surprised at how much power you're wasting in other ways. Do you turn off every light when you leave a room? How about the TV? How about your computer? does it stay on 24/7? What about your monitor? What do you keep your thermostat on? You can probably save more money remedying these areas (if they're a problem that is) than running a lab of 7206vxr's 24/7.

malcybood

Paul Boz wrote:

The power usage is negligible. You'd be surprised at how much power you're wasting in other ways. Do you turn off every light when you leave a room? How about the TV? How about your computer? does it stay on 24/7? What about your monitor? What do you keep your thermostat on? You can probably save more money remedying these areas (if they're a problem that is) than running a lab of 7206vxr's 24/7.

These are all things that I have consciously started to do from my own financial perspective but also from an environmental point of view in the last year or so.

A couple of years ago I probably wouldn't even have thought twice about this type of stuff, but with the whole carbon footprint, learning about energy consumption saving technologies for the data centre etc at work it kind of grabs your attention at home too!

And there's the rising energy costs....I think ultimately my question has been answered that a few switches and routers running for a few hours on a regular basis isn't going to break the bank.

GT-Rob

Don't worry about power, especially with the older equipment. I actually tested it one day with a meter. Turned each device on, one by one.

I found that 2600s use almost nothing. Like 30w/hr. Take the fans out (like I do) and its even less.
2500s are even less.
3640s are about 50-70w/hr.

Basically, 2 x 2600s, 2 x 2500s, 2 x 2950s and 2 x 3640s, all on with fans, were less power than 1 CRT monitor.

I agree, the noise if more of a concern. 3600s have 80mm fans and noise is not a concern when they develop them lol

Plazma

Yea.. switch your bulbs to energy efficient ones.. they help AMAZINGLY well on your power bill. Also get rid of any CRT monitors or at least unplug them when you are not using them.. those suckers really drain the wattage (same holds true for CRT TV's)

redwarrior

Another reason I love dynamips. In fact, I'm selling off some of my hardware and just keeping whatever I can't simulate well in dynamips. (I don't have much space at home anyhow and I have a test lab at work.)

ITdude

If you are using a UPS with related software you can see how much the load changes when turning devices on and off. I have a fairly substantial rack of equipment including a production server that runs pretty much 24/7 and as the others have said the equipment itself is not that bad but the air conditioning running to keep things cool in the summer along with sounding a bit like a DC-3 starting it's engines, is what you have to deal with.

To me, it is like music to my ears to hear those routers and switches humming away except when my phone rings!

Eco

One of my favorite pieces in my lab is my APC Masterswitch.
It comes with a Timer feature to schedule power, either on or off, to any device(s) connected to it. I set it up so every night it shuts down all my lab equipment in the event I forget to power it down myself. I couldn't tell you how many times I fell asleep in the middle of some practice lab.

liquid6

i really need an APC masterswitch, I have ILO on the 2 HP servers but nothing on all the cisco equipment! Noise and heat used to be issues when I had them in the attic, but they have moved into a freshly built shed now.

All the remote PDUs were looking around 300-500 euro, so I haven't got one yet...

On the equipment front, I went from running the whole lab all the time to running dynamips on my laptop when I am at home and then I have a dynamips server at work when I am there. Most of the stuff I am doing now is short labs, I think if I ever attempt the CCIE I'll probably keep the rack on more.

jbaello

Someone mentioned APC Masterswitch, is this capable of remote powerup and shutoff? I do have a HP server and saw ILO, what is the function of this ILO? I was also trying to play around with Solarwinds WOL to see if there is something there that can benefit me.

We have a smart cards on one of our racked APC battery, the network admin, said it's for remote administration, I was wondering if I can get this card for a home APC battery, I wouldn't mind getting a racked APC battery eventually, just something inexpensive.

jbaello

Do you guys mind giving us a 101 on dynamips? maybe a link? I'm curious...

Thanks

dynamik

There's some decent information here: http://www.techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=33949

mikej412

jbaello wrote:

Do you guys mind giving us a 101 on dynamips?

You can check out the Dynamips/Dynagen links in this thread.

There are also several links to Dynamips/Dynagen threads in the I don’t have any equipment should I buy a Simulator? section of the CCNP FAQ