Networking and 1U Colocation
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I'm looking to downsize my apartment in a couple of months, thus, I'm looking to move my lab server, a Dell R310, into colocation for the time being. I know there are many factors to consider for colocation, but in this discussion I want to focus on networking.
If I were to rent one U of space, here is how I'd imagine the network topology.
I'd have one cable connection between my server and the colo's network. On my hypervisor (for this, KVM), I'd have two networks defined. One would be associated with the physical NIC. The other would be a virtual network for my various VMs. I'd have one VM act as a firewall and router, which would receive all of the traffic on the physical NIC, then route it as need to the virtual network to which all of my other VMs would be attached. While I couldn't tell you exactly how to configure the above, that's what seems to make the most sense to me from a design perspective.
I'm curious about the iDRAC port on my server. I don't make use of it now since I can simply walk 20 feet and be at the console should something go wrong. In a 1U colocation situation; how would one do BIOS updates and such, if all networking would be going through a VM, which won't be available before the hypervisor loads?
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My hosted KVM Server in France is set up like this now.
Essentially you would do NAT with iptables or firewall-cmd or however... And you'd set up ports like 80 / 443 to go to your NGINX Proxy inside... (and other ports if you set up things like Jabber, etc).
You would leave port 22 directed at your KVM host and use Virt-Manager or something to manage the VMs.
I don't have iDRAC access to this system, but AFAIK, those require their own network connections, don't they?
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@dafyre said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
I don't have iDRAC access to this system, but AFAIK, those require their own network connections, don't they?
Yeah, which is what makes me think using it isn't going to be possible. That's what leads me down the path of figuring out how I'd do BIOS updates. The R310 doesn't look like there's been an update available past 2013; however, I'm interested in the thought experiment of if I had newer server, how would (can) this be accomplished?
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Your colo might consider giving you a drop for the iDrac. But more commonly you get a KVM hooked up.
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@scottalanmiller said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
Your colo might consider giving you a drop for the iDrac. But more commonly you get a KVM hooked up.
An IP based KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) and not KVM the hypervisor?
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@dafyre said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@scottalanmiller said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
Your colo might consider giving you a drop for the iDrac. But more commonly you get a KVM hooked up.
An IP based KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) and not KVM the hypervisor?
Correct, ha ha.
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@scottalanmiller said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
Your colo might consider giving you a drop for the iDrac. But more commonly you get a KVM hooked up.
How? With only 1U already filled with the server?
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@jaredbusch said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@scottalanmiller said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
Your colo might consider giving you a drop for the iDrac. But more commonly you get a KVM hooked up.
How? With only 1U already filled with the server?
What do you mean, it's a normal process. The KVM doesn't take up any rack space.
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https://www.colocationamerica.com/colocation/1u-colocation.htm
No idea about other colo, but this one has "KVM over IP Included"
https://i.imgur.com/G1lec0N.png -
@bnrstnr said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
https://www.colocationamerica.com/colocation/1u-colocation.htm
No idea about other colo, but this one has "KVM over IP Included"
https://i.imgur.com/G1lec0N.pngYup, that's who we use and we use that KVM from time to time. Very easy to use.
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What are the specs of the server?
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I imagine whatever rack my server will be in will likely have one 1U that has the KVM device to which they'd connect my server.
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@aaronstuder said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
What are the specs of the server?
Intel Xeon CPU Quad Core X3430 2.4GHz
32 GB RAM
Two 2 TB SATA drives in RAID 1 -
@eddiejennings said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@aaronstuder said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
What are the specs of the server?
Intel Xeon CPU Quad Core X3430 2.4GHz
32 GB RAM
Two 2 TB SATA drives in RAID 1Could be worth calling xByte and getting something a little beefier.
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@scottalanmiller said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@eddiejennings said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@aaronstuder said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
What are the specs of the server?
Intel Xeon CPU Quad Core X3430 2.4GHz
32 GB RAM
Two 2 TB SATA drives in RAID 1Could be worth calling xByte and getting something a little beefier.
I'll give it some thought. I need to think through how I intend to use it beyond just building and destroying VMs just to tinker. Might start a "spec my server" thread.
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@eddiejennings said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@scottalanmiller said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@eddiejennings said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@aaronstuder said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
What are the specs of the server?
Intel Xeon CPU Quad Core X3430 2.4GHz
32 GB RAM
Two 2 TB SATA drives in RAID 1Could be worth calling xByte and getting something a little beefier.
I'll give it some thought. I need to think through how I intend to use it beyond just building and destroying VMs just to tinker. Might start a "spec my server" thread.
Your CPU is fine, but 64GB of RAM might be worthwhile.
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@scottalanmiller said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@eddiejennings said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@scottalanmiller said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@eddiejennings said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@aaronstuder said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
What are the specs of the server?
Intel Xeon CPU Quad Core X3430 2.4GHz
32 GB RAM
Two 2 TB SATA drives in RAID 1Could be worth calling xByte and getting something a little beefier.
I'll give it some thought. I need to think through how I intend to use it beyond just building and destroying VMs just to tinker. Might start a "spec my server" thread.
Your CPU is fine, but 64GB of RAM might be worthwhile.
Yeah. 32 looks like the max for the R310.
http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/products/R310_spec_sheet.pdf
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@eddiejennings said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@scottalanmiller said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@eddiejennings said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@scottalanmiller said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@eddiejennings said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@aaronstuder said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
What are the specs of the server?
Intel Xeon CPU Quad Core X3430 2.4GHz
32 GB RAM
Two 2 TB SATA drives in RAID 1Could be worth calling xByte and getting something a little beefier.
I'll give it some thought. I need to think through how I intend to use it beyond just building and destroying VMs just to tinker. Might start a "spec my server" thread.
Your CPU is fine, but 64GB of RAM might be worthwhile.
Yeah. 32 looks like the max for the R310.
http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/products/R310_spec_sheet.pdf
Ouch, is it really that old? Wow.
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@eddiejennings said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@aaronstuder said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
What are the specs of the server?
Intel Xeon CPU Quad Core X3430 2.4GHz
32 GB RAM
Two 2 TB SATA drives in RAID 1Seems like you'd be better off buying a dedicated server rather than providing your own to Colo. You get better specs, better performance, more bandwidth, SSDs, possibly more IPs, etc... for less than what you pay with Colo.
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@tim_g said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@eddiejennings said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
@aaronstuder said in Networking and 1U Colocation:
What are the specs of the server?
Intel Xeon CPU Quad Core X3430 2.4GHz
32 GB RAM
Two 2 TB SATA drives in RAID 1Seems like you'd be better off buying a dedicated server rather than providing your own to Colo. You get better specs, better performance, more bandwidth, SSDs, possibly more IPs, etc... for less than what you pay with Colo.
Colo is generally still cheaper, he just needs a newer server to put into it. It's essentially impossible to beat colo prices.
