EricMarsi

Thanks for the interest in everything! Currently there are a few flavors of Skype for Business, Fully on Prem, Fully in Office 365, Hybrid between on prem and Office 365, and Could Connector edition (lets you connect your on prem PSTN to the cloud). Most of the cloud offerings are going away soon and Microsoft Teams is replacing Skype for business online as a separate more modern service. In a way the interested in unified communications is tied to both Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams As for my interest in it, it has just been one of my passions for the past 1.5 years. Ive already passed my 70-334 exam and am currently studying for my 70-333. For 20 years old that's not bad lol. Skype for Business alone is 16 virtual machines since I like making everything HIGHLY available but makes things much more complicated. I try not to over allocate them, but I have had no slow downs other than running out of Disk IOPS. Looking into building/buying a SAN and building a Hyper-V cluster, but that wouldn't happen till next year. Storage currently is all independent per host. For monitoring, I am using PRTG and System Center Operations Manager. and Yes, I have a "special" NFR license since I am a student. I prefer Quest Rapid Recovery (Formerly Dell AppAssure) but it is yet another expense that I just cannot afford. I have licensing for Data protection manager, but I personally do not like it as a backup solution.

I would recommend HP DL360 or DL380 Gen8 Server loaded with memory and some high-end Xeon CPU's. Theyre highly reliable servers and while buying used, they offer great benefits, plus 8GB modules are $14 a piece on ebay for them

Very Nice; we all start somewhere. I used to like building servers, but its much easier to buy used HP Servers (No a dell server fan). I updated the original post with some more information.

More than I had at 15 I had whatever my laptop was at the time as my Hyper-V Host :P. Towards the end of highschool, My Cisco Networking instructor gave me some servers and other things; DL360 G5's to be exact

Honestly Ive been getting this stuff over the years so its hard to say "This" was the cost but I believe one of them 1.5 years ago was 1600 total (Used). As for configuring Cisco Equipment, I think it is very easy. Its my preferred vendor. I like to plan out the ports and have base configs so configuration is simple and usually only takes me 5-10 minutes per device. Here is an example of how I plan the ports: Thank you for the compliment I forgot to mention I do have two UPS'es, one for server hardware and one smaller one for everything else. That ensures that power is stable coming into the rack. I never had one before this upgrade that I just did this past weekend so I too did suffer from the unstable power issue. Now if I could only get one of those large EATON UPS'es like @LinusSebastian but unfortunately, being independent and in school full time still (only 20) is the drawback from being able to afford a 17K UPS.

Hey Everyone! Wanted to start a thread in regards to my home datacenter project where I will post updates on what equipment I am playing around with. Completed is in quotes as you and I both know that nothing is ever 100% complete and is always changing. Just a quick rundown of what I have in my "datacenter" as of 11/29/17 (Top to Bottom): g 1x Cisco 2960s POE+ Switch 4x1GB uplink to the core switch 1x Cisco 3650 POE Layer 3 Core Switch 1x Cisco Meraki MX64 (Wanting to swap this out for an ASA-5506X) 1x Motorola SB6120 Cable Modem (Wanting to swap this out for an Arris SB8200) 1x Cisco 2504 Wireless LAN Controller Controls Cisco 1702, 2702 and one 1602 Access Points 1x Cisco 2901 Router Used as a basic firewall between my internal perimeter network and my internal network (Skype for Business, Exchange Transport, and Reverse Proxies Live Here 1x Cisco 2921 Router Used for a Cisco CUCM Deployment. I care more about Skype for Business but it gives me the chance to learn a migration path from one phone system to another. 2x Cisco 2960s Switches Stacked for Servers Each Server's Network team is split between the switches so that if either of the switches fail, the servers stay online. HV4 HP Gen8 Microserver 16gb RAM Xeon 1220L V2 LSI 9260-8i Raid Card 1x 250GB SSD for OS Used as a Hyper-V Host for the following VM's File Server System Center VMM Library System Center SCCM Storage HV3 Dell R210 II 32GB RAM Xeon 1265 LSI 9211-4i 2x 120GB SSDs for OS and Virtual Machines 2x 4TB WD Red Drives in RAID 1 for Storage Used as a Hyper-V Host for the following VM's: Veeam Backup and Replication HV2 HP DL160 Gen8 2x Xeon E5-2670 (8 Cores, 16 threads Each) 192GB Ram (8GB DIMMS) HP P420i Raid Card 2x 72GB 15K SAS Drives in RAID 1 for OS 6x 300GB 15K SAS Drives in RAID 5 for VM Storage Used as a Hyper-V Host for the following VM's: 2nd Domain Controller SCCM Server SCVMM Server System Center SQL Always on AG SQL Server 2 Skype for Business Back end SQL Always on SG SQL Server 2 2x Skype for Business Front-End Servers (3 and 4) Many More Skype for Business Servers Many Many More VM's HV1 HP DL380 Gen8 2x Xeon E5-2670 (8 Cores, 16 threads Each) 192GB Ram (8GB DIMMS) HP P420i Raid Card HP P420 Raid Card 2x 180GB Corsair SSD's in RAID 1 for OS 4x 300GB 15K SAS Drives in RAID 5 for VM Storage 2x random test drives Used as a Hyper-V Host for the following VM's: Primary Domain Controller KMS Server System Center SQL Always on AG SQL Server 1 Skype for Business Back end SQL Always on SG SQL Server 1 2x Skype for Business Front-End Servers (1 and 2) Many More Skype for Business Servers Many Many More VM's Here's a look at the different subnets that I have and some other configuration information that I document (What I consider Confidential information has been redacted) Note that this is just a small part of what actually runs on my network :): Click to enlarge: Here is a video on the current status: Please let me know what you think and give some suggestions!

Anyone have a list of the songs from this build log? Theres the three in the video decription, but not ones that are in the video

Would Love to have a NUC, would finally be able to try some home automation projects and also in the mean time get my family a new pc. Thanks Intel for the Giveaway!

I would build myself a ultimate VM host to continue my studies with Servers and maybe get more certifications, I would load the system up with 64gb ram. Throw in a LSI 9260-8i Raid card and put some 512gb corsair force lx drives in a raid 5. I would Literally make the best VM host that is low on power consumption and no where as loud as enterprise servers. Thank you Linus for this opportunity and have a merry Christmas!

Heard about Puget in one of their first mineral oil cooled pc builds back in 2009-10 where they actually made a custom build in a fish tank with a removable motherboard tray. Wasn't a great system at the time, but it got me really interested at the time in their systems. Its a shame that their company's product failed because of trolls trying to get more money for themselves. Hope you come back Puget! If I would win, I wouldn't really care about whether it was itx or matx, personally itx would be great, but wither or would be great! Thanks for the opportunity!

Hi Linus, Been a fan of NCIXcom and Linus tech tips since day one. Love your videos man and watch every episode across all 4 channels (Includes NCIX's Channel). You have taught me many things about computers, devices, and servers and have inspired me to be the better person and one that is more logical when talking about computers and electronics to friends. I am a senior in Ohio and have even watched your episodes in my cisco tech class. Thank you again for everything you've done again! P.S. I haven't been an active forum Member because I have been extremely busy with school and work. If you Read this, I just would like to thank you again for knowledge that I will be able to use In my Future IT Career

Null, Thanks!

Null, Thanks!

Null, Thanks!

not a good idea as if the paint is conductive, it will short stuff out, secondly, if you bend it a lot it will crack and break into small pieces inside your case