Le Materiel de Laboratoire est Arrive!

6 multi-core HP servers optimized/enabled for virtualization running Intel and AMD chips

2 non-VT multicore Dell boxes

A killer EqualLogic iSCSI SAN on loan C

ISCO and HP GigE switches

2 vintage SunFire boxes running Solaris 10

APC Enclosure & KVM

1 gently-used Apple Xserve

A quick, rough count gives us more than 30 cores, ~100 Gbytes of RAM, and ~8 Tbytes of speedy storage to play with. We're going to have fun and faithful readers will benefit from our missteps, mishaps, and pratfalls as we install, configure, and run enterprise-class virtualization rigs. We hope you'll also benefit from our successes, Aha! moments, and experiential learning.

We're already looking at circuit amp loads and a new fiber run as part of our build up. Power, BTUs, and bandwidth; sound familiar to anyone out there? While we have the benefit of a lab setting for all of our test environments, we will be facing the same real-world constraints that all of you have. We'll be keeping track of setup times, budget impacts, room temps -- the whole deal. We want this to be as real as possible, warts and all.We have contacts at VMware, XenSource, VirtualIron, and a raft of appliance vendors (virtual and traditional) looking to help out with new gear and platform setup over the next few weeks. This is an exciting time for us. As always, stay tuned!