Create a personal AWS ec2 like service

[jpp46]

I was wondering if it is possible to set up a personal version of something like AWS ec2 (elastic compute):

 

I computer scientist so I have used these tools a lot but am really new to setting up such systems, the questions I have go something like this:

1. How do I physically link a series of computers together

2. How do I link them in software with something like a hypervisor

3. How do I dynamically create new systems like a linux server with some set of virtual hardware specs like how on aws you pick your build (but obviously without thier fancy interface for it)

4. What else do I need to do so that I can have multiple of these virtual machines running at a time each as individual servers

5. What is the cheapest way to play around with this idea so I can get it right before I buy better hardware

 

Essentially I would like to make a mini data center in my house such that it implements all of the components in a real data center but at a very small scale, if anyone can help answer some of these questions or point me in the right direction I would really appreciate it.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Most hypervisors support clusters and some sort of scripting, like you would with ec2.

 

You get a few servers, put a hypervisor on them, then setup shared storage, script it to scale as needed.

 

There is no super easy way to do it, thats what ec2 is for. If you want to set this up for production you should probably hire someone that knows how to do this.

 

If you want to do this for home, just get a server, put proxmox or simmilar on it and make some vms.

[Jarsky]

Just to clarify, EC2 isnt elastic across nodes; its elastic in resources up to the nodes limit. 

Thats why the largest EC2 instance is 96 vCPU's which is 2 x 24core Intel Xeons (48C/96T).

 

10 minutes ago, jpp46 said:

1. How do I physically link a series of computers together

You physically link computers together typically using Network. i.e a network switch of some description, and network adapters

10 minutes ago, jpp46 said:

2. How do I link them in software with something like a hypervisor

You install the hypervisor software onto each server (node), and then you link them together in a cluster. 

e.g using VMware you install ESXi on each of the physical servers, you then create a VCSA (vCenter Appliance) which you then join all the hosts to and configure your storage, distributed networks and clusters. 

10 minutes ago, jpp46 said:

3. How do I dynamically create new systems like a linux server with some set of virtual hardware specs like how on aws you pick your build (but obviously without thier fancy interface for it)

You use some sort of automation script. In the VMware world you use vRealize Orchestrator which has an end user web interface. 

10 minutes ago, jpp46 said:

4. What else do I need to do so that I can have multiple of these virtual machines running at a time each as individual servers

I'm not sure what you mean by this...you create as many VM's as you want and that your hardware can handle and in a hypervisor cluster you just put them on whichever host has the resource, or you want them to run on.

 

10 minutes ago, jpp46 said:

5. What is the cheapest way to play around with this idea so I can get it right before I buy better hardware

VMware ESXi and vCenter have an evaluation license if you want to go try that out, it has IIRC a 60 day evaluation license. You can virtualise ESXi hosts on VMware Workstation if you have a PC with enough power. (Predominantly memory as VCSA requires 10GB free memory to install)

 

You could "trial" the entire VMware suite for $250/year as part of a VMUG subscription. Keep in mind real licensing for vCenter & vRealize is very expensive beyond using a VMUG license for "personal learning". 

 

10 minutes ago, jpp46 said:

Essentially I would like to make a mini data center in my house such that it implements all of the components in a real data center but at a very small scale, if anyone can help answer some of these questions or point me in the right direction I would really appreciate it.

 

You might possibly want to look into cheap/free alternatives such as Proxmox or Hyper-V. Hyper-V you can get or create Powershell scripts to automate VM creation etc....

[jpp46]

Okay this sounds like the information I need, but just to clarify I could buy a couple cheap computers like this wipe the hard drives and install something like Xen Project Hypervisor on them link them together and basically experiment with the other software mentioned from there.

 

I guess I am asking if this sounds like a good first step?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, jpp46 said:

Okay this sounds like the information I need, but just to clarify I could buy a couple cheap computers like this wipe the hard drives and install something like Xen Project Hypervisor on them link them together and basically experiment with the other software mentioned from there.

 

I guess I am asking if this sounds like a good first step?

Your gonna want faster computers that that, get core i7 generations chips or never, stay away from core 2 chips.

 

Also how much total compute power do you need in the cluster? Id get a single faster computer here.

 

If you want a budget server, Id get something like a dell r720 today. They can be like 10-20x faster than that desktop you linked aswell, and store 512gb+ of ram.

[Jarsky]

If you want to setup a lab I wouldn't go with such old systems. If we're talking the VMware setup then they'd need a minimum of 16GB memory each, and 250-500GB of space to account for the VCSA & vRealize installs (VCSA itself needs 10GB memory and 200GB space for the VCSA+PSC)

 

I'd go the above route and get a decent system, you can always run 1 hypervisor on there, and then virtualise your nodes to build a test lab. Once you're happy then you can always just buy a second duplicate node if more compute is needed, and more memory for them to build it out properly. 

 

You might find you dont even need to build out a cluster, and that you're happy just running something like Proxmox and doing everything on there...

 

[jpp46]

10 hours ago, Jarsky said:

If you want to setup a lab I wouldn't go with such old systems. If we're talking the VMware setup then they'd need a minimum of 16GB memory each, and 250-500GB of space to account for the VCSA & vRealize installs (VCSA itself needs 10GB memory and 200GB space for the VCSA+PSC)

 

I'd go the above route and get a decent system, you can always run 1 hypervisor on there, and then virtualise your nodes to build a test lab. Once you're happy then you can always just buy a second duplicate node if more compute is needed, and more memory for them to build it out properly. 

 

You might find you dont even need to build out a cluster, and that you're happy just running something like Proxmox and doing everything on there...

 

That is good to know, I agree that I could achieve the same with just a single more powerful computer, however I am mainly doing this for personal interest/education purposes.

 

I will be graduating in a year from my Ph.D. program and want to be a professor, I like hand on courses so am also thinking of designing a data center course where the students actually build a fully functioning data center (although smaller), and reuse the hardware mostly from year to year. To do that I will need to be able to do it myself first.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 hours ago, jpp46 said:

That is good to know, I agree that I could achieve the same with just a single more powerful computer, however I am mainly doing this for personal interest/education purposes.

 

I will be graduating in a year from my Ph.D. program and want to be a professor, I like hand on courses so am also thinking of designing a data center course where the students actually build a fully functioning data center (although smaller), and reuse the hardware mostly from year to year. To do that I will need to be able to do it myself first.

You can also get one faster computer, and do this full setup in vms. Nest virtualization lets you do this.

[GDRRiley]

If you are after getting a bunch. Try public auctions or make friends with some local e recyclers