Home core machine

[JCBiggs]

I am in the process of shifting my workload from my employer,  to my own company (with their permission)  

 

I do design and my company wants to get out of that for liability reasons.   

 

I forsee a future need for multiple workstations and  lots of computer power in the next 1-3 years.   Not just for my company,  but also for my home needs as well.  

 

Ill be the first to admit i don't know much about virtualization so please feel free to tell me if/how things i want to do are/are not   feasible.   Open to all suggestion and comments. 

 

First and foremost is the compute requirements of the workstation/business side of the build. I Intend to rely on nvidia grid to distribute resources to operators on an as needed basis.  So that's first..  Machine must be grid  capable.  

 

In addition to that,  ill also need business class file storage,  ftp and mail server capabilities,  as well as the licensing  server for my cad/cam software.  

 

Then is the home side of the machine.   Id like to use this rig to also run my home automation setup,  security cameras, Multimedia server  and file storage,  as well as 3 or 4 thin clients around the house. 

 

<i>To elaborate on the home automation... I'm planning on using 12v led lighting through the house.  As well as 12 volt actuators for things like  shades,  air vents,  and windows.  This will probably be (most likely)  a plc setup with multiple hmi points through the house.   The server will mostly just be a central control point with more control than just the on/off  capability of the rest of the devices in the house. </i>

 

There would also be a vm or 2 for testing/development as I'm currently working on learning some programming

 

So right  now I'm eyeballing a supermicro superworkstation.  Dual socket 24 core xeons,  lots of ram and plenty of video card room.  

 

Now the question becomes how do i layer  the virtualization... What all peices of software would i need to buy to make it all work.   I assume each of the workstations would be a thin client  vdi with remote access if needed.  Then i guess all the home stuff could each run on its own vm...  Right?    What software makes all that work?   The plc/hmi control softwate I'm used to wokring with just runs on windows.   

 

Im also looking for good options for firewall appliances.   (pfsense on a separate machine seems to  mAke the most sense at this point) 

 

Anyone care to take a stab at this.  

[SLAYR]

I would suggest going for multiple servers, the reason being is that if something causes this server to crash, you are losing all of your workstations, file server, mail server, home automation, and security.

 

About the virtualization any modern xeons can handle it, you would want something like windows server, or some other server grade OS for this whole setup.

[JCBiggs]

I thought about the crash issues.   I think i would rather take my Chances with backups and imagea vs buying extra hardware.  If i get to a. Point where i feel like i need to  seperate the home and work... I Would definitely do so.   As it sits,  I'm going to have to spend so much on the nvidia grid setup and virtualization,  i just don't want to buy even more hardware right now. And id need two hypervisor licenses.