As mentioned in an earlier post, my ESXi server has been running in a VMware Fusion VM on my iMac. My iMac has 24 GB RAM and 4 logical CPUs; I dediated 10 GB RAM and 2 vCPUs to the ESXi VM.
Last week, I upgraded to a Dell R610 with 96GB RAM and dual Xeon 3 GHz CPUs (16 vCPUs). Although ESXi 6.7 is unsupported on the R610, I installed it and so far it is working great. I am really enjoying the breathing room that so many more CPUs and so much more RAM gives me. Now I can create VMs pretty much as big as I would ever want.
I also made two changes to my PXE configuration.
First, I added a default boot option to the PXE config. Now, it automatically starts a CentOS 7 install after 10 seconds, complete with a kickstart file that adds my user and installs my SSH keys. Mere minutes after I boot a new VM, it is up and running CentOS 7 and I can SSH into it.
Second, I updated my PXE environment to add netboot.xyz. Previously I had the ability to install a half-dozen or so OSes via PXE. Now I can install many more OSes just as easily.
My next update will be to add a managed switch, so that I can use link aggregation for my DS415+ and R610.
I am a system engineer in the Raleigh, NC area. My main interests are Unix, VMware, and networking. More about me, and how I got started.