Hardware recommendations for building a virtual UCS lab?

ande0255

I've got bootable images for CUCM / CUC / CUPS / UCCX, and am now looking at what hardware would be best for running a lab. It's hard to find direct answers to this question through my searches, though it seems like maybe just a standard desktop pc may work, and my main question is if there are any minimum specs a PC must meet to run these virtualized servers simultaneously?

I'm pretty broke so I'm looking for the cheapest possible option while not pushing the limit of what the hardware can do to the point of meltdown - Thanks!

EDIT:

Should also throw in here that I do run some of this stuff on my local laptop in vmware workstation, but would like to setup a separate dedicated box to run all the servers in case I explode my laptop.

ehnde

You could go so far as to get hardware supported on the vmware HCL for ESXi, but that's kind of a hassle unless you just happen to have a computer that already has supported hardware.

Any PC built within the past 2 years that has virtualization extensions will run vmware workstation or vmware player. Stick as many hard drives and as much RAM as you can in that computer. You're going to need 2G ram for each VM and 80gb hard drive. If you have enough hard drives, run them on separate hard drives to prevent slowness from disk I/O. If you can only manage to get 1 or 2 drives you'll probably be fine as long as you have the space....it is just lab stuff, after all.

At the CCNA:Voice level you don't need to learn UCCX. Or do you need to know it for work?

I've modified a CUCM iso with a hex editor to make the hardware check script always return true so that I could install CUCM in Hyper-V. Let me just tell you that there is a reason pigs do not fly. I'll never try to do that again...

Call Manager will install in Vmware ESXi, Vmware player, and Vmware Workstation. It does not matter what the host operating system is.

ande0255

Yep UCCX will be for work related studies, but ultimately I'll be building this lab for NP Voice level studies as well. I have enough exposure at work to all UC platforms for customers, so troubleshooting in those along with using virtualized CUCM and CUC on my laptop should be enough for the CCNA Voice level.

I was considering getting this specifically and expanding the memory to 8GB:

HP Pre-Owned, Refurbished Black 6005 Desktop PC with AMD Athlon II X2 Processor, 4GB Memory, 750GB Hard Drive and Windows 7 Professional (Monitor Not Included): Computers : Walmart.com

Think I would need to add hard drives to something like that if its got the one 750GB already in it with 8GB of RAM?

All feedback is appreciated

ehnde

You might be able to get away with 1 hard drive. For the sake of frugality you could try it out and see if you have problems with disk I/O. My only concern is if you do need to add a drive or two, the case might not have any space for another drive. Hard to tell without seeing the inside.

draught

I may have a laptop for you that would cover your needs, I'll have to run a test on it first.
Wait the laptop would be about $399. For something cheaper those suggestions covered already might be a better idea.