Network pics thread

[Lightworker]

And some cabling pr0n:

This is a rack from a previous employer, mostly user ports and patch panels to other racks on the row. Time, neglect and sloppiness are how it arrived at this state. I gutted the entire rack, replaced some switches and installed shorter cables (2ft vs 7-10ft) and some Neat Patch boxes.

The garbage gear in that rack (Cat Express 500's, Linksys junk) were all replaced with 3560-48PS's, and the 3750G core with a 4948-10GE shortly afterwards.

 

[calvinj]

Fortigate 100D
Fortigate 100D
SonicWall NSA2400
Cisco ASA 5510

Couldn't Decide on a firewall vendor?

 

[Lightworker]

I work for a VAR now, gotta be smart on all the gear we're slinging

 

[mytechtv]

This is the network/phone setup where I work. Makes me want to kill myself.

Little old but looks the same, replaced the 16 port linksys with a 16 port netgear 10/100! (yay!) cause it died, also replaced the router with a Netgear w/ DD-WRT. Boss won't spend any money to upgrade. No gigabit for me except at home.

Home network:

HP ST5742 w/ expansion module running pfSense
Not pictured Motorola SBG6850 cable modem
Dlink DGS-1224T
Dlink DGS-1248T just sitting there need to replace fans almost tempted to fix it up and use it at work.
Linksys WRT610N running as an access point

 

[jmroberts70]

Aw man, I've been there. Take my word for it: run like hell!!

 

[valve1138]

Must be a law office. Those guys are so cheap.

 

[jmroberts70]

Seriously guys, this is an all-too-familiar sign that this business is poorly run and not worth your talents / expertise. Freshen up that resume and get out of there ASAP before it sucks the life out of you. Any business owner that can be shown that and think it's an acceptable condition is either too stupid to care at best, or too broke to be able to pay for doing the job right at worst. Either way, you're screwed to be an employee there.

 

[mytechtv]

I work at a computer store :/ Sad.

 

[/usr/home]

I work at a computer store :/ Sad.

The one I used to work at was super cheap too. Our technician machines were all built from dead P4s that we parted to make Franken-puters. This was in 2010 too so not super long ago.

 

[jeffmoss26]

Lightworker, nice pics. Good job on the cleanup.
Mytechtv, all I can say is yikes! Your home setup looks nice though

 

[mytechtv]

The one I used to work at was super cheap too. Our technician machines were all built from dead P4s that we parted to make Franken-puters. This was in 2010 too so not super long ago.

Funny our bench machines were P4s when I came here. Since i've been here I have been able to cobble together a C2Q 8gb DDR2 and a 3TB hdd for my bench machine.

 

[calvinj]

I work for a VAR now, gotta be smart on all the gear we're slinging

HAHA only one set of appliances worth it there

 

[Lightworker]

HAHA only one set of appliances worth it there

They've all got their quirks I suppose. I don't want to say the ASAs are without fault, but I'm certainly more comfortable with that platform over the others.

We use the Fortigates for some of our internal infrastructure and they seem to do a pretty good job, but the remote access VPN client is absolute shit--I think Cisco's AnyConnect reigns supreme there. We have a few customers that literally run thousands of remote sites (retail) with SonicWalls and they're great for that. I'd hate to manage that many ASA's...

 

[Berg0]

They've all got their quirks I suppose. I don't want to say the ASAs are without fault, but I'm certainly more comfortable with that platform over the others.

We use the Fortigates for some of our internal infrastructure and they seem to do a pretty good job, but the remote access VPN client is absolute shit--I think Cisco's AnyConnect reigns supreme there. We have a few customers that literally run thousands of remote sites (retail) with SonicWalls and they're great for that. I'd hate to manage that many ASA's...

Juniper network connect and junos pulse are pretty damn good, should have a look.

 

[Lightworker]

I haven't set them up yet, I'll get around to it on a rainy day probably, but we don't have any Juniper gear in house for lab use. I've used the pulse client before and had no complaints.

 

[twistacatz]

mytechtv,

Like everyone else has said you need to find a way out of there. As an IT guy you deserve to work with better equipment. I mean that crap is as low end as I have heard or seen. Hook up the resume and look for another gig ASAP, you will never grow in that type of environment.

Berg0,

Congrats on the home. We closed on our house a little less then a year ago and I'm just now finishing up the IT closet and HT. Have fun and enjoy the process. What type of home automation stuff do you plan to install?

 

[Vashypooh]

Juniper network connect and junos pulse are pretty damn good, should have a look.

NC is pretty much dead at this point.

Pulse is freaking amazing.

 

[twistacatz]

NC is pretty much dead at this point.

Pulse is freaking amazing.

I use Pulse for my phone but NC at work to connect home. What's the big difference and why is it amazing? I can't find any big differences searching the web.

Thanks!

 

[Vashypooh]

I use Pulse for my phone but NC at work to connect home. What's the big difference and why is it amazing? I can't find any big differences searching the web.

Thanks!

They are working to unify both UAC and SSLVPN so essentially you could plug into your office network, and the SSL VPN would transfer your session over to UAC allowing the user to experience seamless work.

Pulse does allow for a direct-access equivalent where the machine can VPN back home the second it has network connectivity and a bunch of other cool stuff.

NC is also just about EOL same with Odyssey.

 

[Vashypooh]

My gaming clan does Colocation instead of renting servers, and needed a new ArmA3 machine.. The game is odd in that it will consume all of the CPU power it can, and only wants GHZ so we had to get a tad creative.

Going to be over-clocking this prior to sending to NOC, shooting for 4.5 to 4.8 range.

Specs:

ASUS Sabertooth X79
i7 4930K
Dynatron R8 CPU Heatsink
G.SKILL Sniper 4x8gb 32gb kit
Norco 270
Raid 10 Crucial M500 240GB
EVGA 8400 (lol)
Seasonic x650
Delta 80mm fans @ 132.5 CFM.

Some members questioned how cool this thing could get so I recorded a video with only 3 of the fans powered (due to the 4ths connector being bad, so waiting on that before screwing them all in.) The middle fan managed to unplug itself blowing so hard. Haha.

http://random.kennocha.com/pictures/ServerUpgrade/Video/2014-03-18%2022.47.42.mp4

 

[FLECOM]

that power supply is going to get upset pretty quickly I would imagine

 

[Vashypooh]

that power supply is going to get upset pretty quickly I would imagine

Its facing the cold isle of the rack with a fan blowing right into it. It will be ok.

 

[Berg0]

Berg0,

Congrats on the home. We closed on our house a little less then a year ago and I'm just now finishing up the IT closet and HT. Have fun and enjoy the process. What type of home automation stuff do you plan to install?

Currently leaning towards Control4, doing a few window coverings, all the lights, garage door, 5 zones of audio, and eventually when I finish my basement, I'll be building another dedicated home theater. Crestron is tempting, but like twice the cost of Control4 for a lot of stuff.

That being said, I have some friends who have done a lot with the insteon stuff, and you don't need to pay a dealer to program it like with Control4 and Crestron.

My last theater had a 12U rack embedded in the wall, this one will be a 22U cabinet that will be stored in the mechanical room, the blinking lights on devices was annoying to have in the theater itself.

 

[schizrade]

I wish I could post my babies (server rooms and racks) at work. Damn security.

 

[Deleted member 238539]

Seriously guys, this is an all-too-familiar sign that this business is poorly run and not worth your talents / expertise. Freshen up that resume and get out of there ASAP before it sucks the life out of you. Any business owner that can be shown that and think it's an acceptable condition is either too stupid to care at best, or too broke to be able to pay for doing the job right at worst. Either way, you're screwed to be an employee there.

This is basically my situation. Looking as we speak. Every project here is attempt in the most half-assed / backwards way. Always worried about the dime and not the dollar. Before I worked here they only had consultants do everything. So far since Jan 1st I have completely re configured DHCP, DNS, switch gear. The next is VLAN elimination. We have them only because the old firm could not get anything to work right, whenever I have a network issue, I always look at them first, because 9/10 times they are the culprit.

 

[jmroberts70]

Yeah, it boils down to realizing that, when working for a company that will pinch pennies with their operational equipment, they will consider their employees just as unimportant. They will spend as little as possible on you as well --and let you go in a heartbeat if it will "save them money". It's a stupid practice but I've worked in and around them for many years. I avoid them like the plague now --and I'm much happier too!!

 

[Red Squirrel]

that power supply is going to get upset pretty quickly I would imagine

Was going to say the same. Chances are another customer's server will be blocking that fan intake, unless you specifically ask (and pay for) to keep a blank U.

Nice server though!

 

[PigLover]

Its facing the cold isle of the rack with a fan blowing right into it. It will be ok.

That really won't do it any good. The PSU fan is designed to pull air in through the baffle that will be completely blocked by the cover on that RPC-270 and then it will be attempting to blow our out the front of the case. It will create enough pressure to prevent any air from your "cold side + fan" from ever getting in and will very effectively trap all the PSU generated heat inside the PSU case.

Well known design flaw in the RPC-270...

Better plan to buy new PSUs frequently. In fact, you keep this design, you pretty much better buy a spare now 'cuz it won't be long until you need it.

 

[Vashypooh]

That really won't do it any good. The PSU fan is designed to pull air in through the baffle that will be completely blocked by the cover on that RPC-270 and then it will be attempting to blow our out the front of the case. It will create enough pressure to prevent any air from your "cold side + fan" from ever getting in and will very effectively trap all the PSU generated heat inside the PSU case.

Well known design flaw in the RPC-270...

Better plan to buy new PSUs frequently. In fact, you keep this design, you pretty much better buy a spare now 'cuz it won't be long until you need it.

We shall see I suppose, but I realistically do expect it to be fine.

 

[klank]

We shall see I suppose, but I realistically do expect it to be fine.

As do I. Too many arm chair experts claiming that so and so will be the end of the world.

 

[PigLover]

As do I. Too many arm chair experts claiming that so and so will be the end of the world.

No problem. But my comment was not just armchairing. I got rid of my RPC-270 precisely because I kept losing PSUs in it.

 

[abdul201388]

I was with a crappy ADSL Provider for the past 10 years, We finally moved to Virgin Media.

Old speeds were 5mpbs download upload speeds were 0.45mpbs

News speeds at the bottom

 

[Jay_2]

VMs uploads are pretty crap though

 

[p3n]

VMs uploads are pretty crap though

Isnt that DOCSIS 3.0 or are VM being stingy?

 

[MrGuvernment]

No problem. But my comment was not just armchairing. I got rid of my RPC-270 precisely because I kept losing PSUs in it.

i just decommissioned 2 of those cases, last model that ran just under 3 years each as firewalls and didnt loose a single PSU, but they were also in my own racks which all have 1U of space above them, they had Corsair 550w Modulars in them.

 

[abdul201388]

Isnt that DOCSIS 3.0 or are VM being stingy?

It's is DOCSIS 3.0. VM got the fair usage policy. They've put a cap on the upload speed, It was set on the download speed, buy obviously they've removed it.

 

[p3n]

It's is DOCSIS 3.0. VM got the fair usage policy. They've put a cap on the upload speed, It was set on the download speed, buy obviously they've removed it.

I know it is DOCSIS 3.0 but on the hardware side they are using 4/5 channels for downstream and only 2 upstream so presumably a symmetrical connection isn't actually possible in that configuration?

Don't get me started on their traffic management, use your full speed for more than an hour and your upstream is even more useless.

 

[abdul201388]

My Baby.

 

[paulwatson5]

Long time lurker but my first ever post.
I found this thread and throught "ughh 607 pages, im a bit behind...."
I'm onto page 317 and i have been inspired to get my act together and setup my network. I have just moved into my new house in January so things aint setup as yet and im still pretty new to networking so all of my gear may be old but its just for learning.

I have a HP N40L microserver which im using to help get me through the CompTIA Network + exam, its just used a a 24/7 file server but its also DNS and DHCP server.

In my garage i have a host of other stuff, all been given to me or acquired very cheap (again, just for learning but prefer a hands on learning approach)

Ideally i would like to convert some of the garage into a small server room (few partition walls etc) but im not sure if it will be big enough or if the wife would go for it. (Just want to prevent any damp in the garage really....

This is the garage and i was thinking of doing something in that back left hand side.

I have a few bits and bobs..... top is a RM Nimbus P4 2.8Ghz SFF pc which i was going to use as a firewall with pfsense or ipcop installed. It was 1GB ram, 3 GB NICS and a 40GB IDE Drive which i would imagine is more than enough plus its upgradable.

Next down is an empty ML350 HP 4u case, bought for £5 with a motherboard, 8 bay 2.5" sas rack and all fans etc (sold them all apart from the case for £50 to gain some funds for projects) so its empty right now...... (couldnt afford the actual CPU's for the ML350 board)

Next is a pair of 1u cases, i have a silent 1u psu and a mini itx 1ghz cpu/board installed, nothing running on it yet, again was thinking about a firewall or something lite to run on it.

The 2nd 1u case is empty

The 2u case is the bottom is empty apart from a standard ATX power supply (got the 2u and both 1u cases for just £10 from gumtree (UK version of craigslist)

This little wooden book shelf was surplus since the house move so though it would be good for storage of my cisco gear while i got myself a small rack/lab setup (again, i know its all old but it should teach me the basics after i pass the CompTIA Network + exam.

and this is the cisco cabinet opened up.....

All of the cisco gear was free apart from the cisco phone, which was £1.50 from a car boot sale (yard sale??)

So, thats where im at right now and i think im going to buy 3 x ikea lack square tables and make myself a rack for the garage, so it "should" end up looking a bit like this....

(taken from this website http://spuder.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/lack-rack/

Comments and suggestions VERY welcome!!!

 

[Ctek]

Paulwatson5, from the way I see it and know about those Lack Tables from IKEA, you seem to put on a lot of weight on those tables. The bottom one must be heavily stressed, especially knowing that these table legs are cheap pressed wood and not even totally filled.

I would not stand by near this Ikea tower of doom lol.