NSX, vRA & vSAN Home Lab

[asrarguna]

Hi All,

Should I go with Nested Hypervisor or Bare metal for NSX, vRA & vSAN home LAB? Do I need a physical "Layer 3 Managed switch" to use NSX? Also can I do a LAB for vSAN using below specs?

I have 2 X Dell Precision T7500 Towers with below specs:

CPU: 2x X5570 2.93GHz

RAM: 28GB

HDD: 320GB 10KRPM SATA

I have another PC with

CPU: 1X Intel Core i7 3 GHz

RAM: 24GB

HDD: SATA 1TB

For Storage (SAN), I am using "Starwinds Virtual SAN" and OpenFiler. I don't have physical NAS or SAN. Can I do vSAN using Openfiler and Starwinds Virtual SAN?

Thank you.

AG

[parmarr]

I suggest to go Bare metal for NSX. I personally have not had good experience setting up a nested environment with NSX espcially when you are configuring your Edge machines. Why use VSAN if you'll be using OpenFiler for your storage needs - unless also you want to learn VSAN, then OpenFiler might not work as well. For more information, see the Virtual SAN Networking Requirements and Best Practices section of the vSphere Storage Guide. https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/5.5/com.vmware.vsphere.storage.doc/GUID-8408319D-CA53-4241....

[amolnjadhav · Accepted solution]

Hi Asrarguna,

   I have installed my NSX setup in my home lab with below specs "NSX/ESX Components are installed in VMware Workstation (NOT inside ESX)"

1. Processor : Intel (R) Core i7 – 4790 CPU@3.60 Ghz.

2. Memory : 32 GB

3. Disks : 128 GB “SSD” & 1 TB “SATA”

4. OS :Windows 10

5. Softwares :VMware Workstation 11 + Microsoft visio

I have not seen any issue with nested environment but anyways you have very good hardware configuration you can deploy as you like.

Should I go with Nested Hypervisor or Bare metal for NSX, vRA & vSAN home LAB?

mentioned above

Do I need a physical "Layer 3 Managed switch" to use NSX?

NO you don't need L3 Switch.. if you are using Physical switch make sure have MTU set to 1600

Also can I do a LAB for vSAN using below specs?

I guess this is possible but probably having SSD is good choice

Can I do vSAN using Openfiler and Starwinds Virtual SAN?

Openfiler is good option, I have used openfiler to deploy NAS.

[asrarguna]

Thank You for your suggestions. I really appreciate it.