Homelab: connectivity

I've posted a little bit about my home lab, and have recently consolidated everything into a single rack. I'm still waiting on a few components for the rack to address recirculation and aesthetics, so I'll wait to publish pictures until that's complete.

I'm a big fan of Ubiquiti UniFi products, and they suit a lab's needs well. If you're looking for a managed solution of simple layer 2 switches, go check them out. I'll publish links to the products as I describe them.

My lab is connected to my home network via the default VLAN. That's the only way into the lab. Everything else is isolated within the lab networks. My home network consists of a pretty robust firewall, and everything behind it is Ubiquiti.

I have a 1Gb fiber connection between the switch that serves my home and the lab "core" switch. The lab core is a UniFi Switch 16 XG (link) that offers (12) 1/10 Gb/sec SFP+ capable ports, and (4) 1/10 Gb/sec RJ45 ports. It is connected to a UniFi Switch 16 (link) and a UniFi Switch 8 (link).

The VLAN configuration simplifies everything in the network. Rather than worry about port assignments, VLAN to port tagging, etc; I decided to create my distributed virtual switches with the VLAN tag in the Distributed Port Groups. This way, I can maintain flexibility and simplicity. The only exception in this scheme is in the connections to the NAS platform which is connected to the Default VLAN and is accessible from both the home network and the lab network.

The server connectivity is shown to the right.

I didn't have a 24 port switch, so I decided to separate management and provisioning. There's not really a need to do that for a small environment, but I could - so I did.

The vMotion and vSAN ports are separate, and the DVS' are using separate VLANs in the connections. I could have used a LACP connection on these ports but in the interest of simplicity, these connections are separate 10Gb/sec using SFP+ DACs.

Hopefully if you're building a server based home lab, you find this helpful. Comments / questions welcomed below.

/finis