Server config - CCIE R&S

Hey fellows,

I am building my CCIE lab, but since the gear I would need is soooo expensive here in Brazil, my current goal is to run gns3 on 2 vms over an hypervisor and connect both vms to my physical lab (cat 2950 and 3750, ISR 2811 and 1700).

Long story short, I would run like 8 routers (7200, 26xx, 36xx) on each virtual machine.
What hardware do you guys recommend?
I just found a "cheap" Dell 2850 with 2x Xeon 3.2GHz and 6GB ECC ddr2, and it seems enough but I am not sure about that.

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joelsfood

A 2850 is not going to run current vsphere hypervisors, as it is missing instruction sets in the CPUs. You'll need at least a 2950 gen III to run Vsphere 5.5

d4nz1g

Allright, thank you!

What do I have to look for in a processor in order to run a vmware hypervisor? (not a server guy here)

joelsfood

It has to do with the generation of processors. I think anything Intel Xeon 5500 or later will run Vsphere 5.5

If you have any doubt, look up the server in the Vmware Hardware Compatibility list. That will always give you the definitive answer.

VMware Compatibility Guide: System Search

For Dells, basically anything x950 (1950, 2950, etc) gen III or Rx10 (R610, R710, etc) will likely be good for Vsphere 5. If you can't pass up a deal on an older server, it just means you'll have to run an older hypervisor. how old you can find on the compatibility list there.

Levithan

joelsfood wrote: »

A 2850 is not going to run current vsphere hypervisors, as it is missing instruction sets in the CPUs. You'll need at least a 2950 gen III to run Vsphere 5.5

Not true, i have a gen II 2950 that runs esxi 5.5 just fine.

@ OP, youll need in the area of 32 gb ram if you're looking to set up a CCIE v5 lab, as the csr1000v needs a min of 2gb to function properly. It may boot with less than 2gb, but once you start implementing routing protocols youll have whacky issues.

Good luck!

nman99

Forget using Vsphere 5.5, there is no point for you to be buying hardware that supports this, use 3.5 or 4.0 it doesn't matter for what you are trying to do, plus you can get away with much older and cheaper hardware. You simply just need a vm environment that can support gns3 inter-networking with your physical network.

davidspirovalentine

@OP,

I have a Dell 2970 and VMware makes a custom hypervisor for 5.5 on the 2970 as it has an AMD proc (super cheap server because of this...).

I have tested 10 instances of the CSR1000v and they are all working fine.

I know this post is old, but thought I'd add my $0.02