Home Labbers Podcast

I keep recording interviews with Home Labbers, but I need a small beak and thinking time on how I can improve the podcast and bring more value to you. You can send me ideas/recommendations or if you want to come and share your story. Use this contact form. https://forms.gle/mqyjGH4XHeFtefUV7

My name is Maarten Van Driessen, I'm a freelance infrastructure consultant and I'm a homelab addict. A bit about myself, I started working in IT back in December of 2009. It was a servicedesk job but it gave me a lot of useful skills. In 2011 I moved into a support engineer role where I had to do everything for SMBs in Belgium. That was actually one of the jobs where I learnt the most. It forced me to figure stuff out because there wasn't really anyone to ask for help. In 2019 I decided to become a freelancer. I've always tinkered around with computers, but for some reason when I made it my job that kind of died down. I first got back into homelabbing in 2014 when I started learning about vSphere and wanted to get to know the product. Due to personal reasons I had to sell it a couple of years later and it kind of died down again. Fast forward to 2021 and I decided to pull the trigger again and purchase something that could be called a production worthy setup. As a freelancer, I need to pay for my own training. i didn't really look forward to dishing out large amounts of cash to training centers because that's not the way I learn the best. I splurged on the lab and learn new technologies that way. This immediately gives me practical experience and in the end it will also be cheaper. https://www.brisk-it.net/homelab-2021/

My homelab has a long history. The very first version has been introduced back in 2016. Currently, I'm not operating my homelab because my girlfriend and I just built a house, and I'm not yet ready for operating the homelab. But hardware is there (like a full 42-unit rack), servers, networking, and storage. Can't wait to get it done. More details on my blog here: https://www.driftar.ch/my-homelab/ HP: https://www.driftar.ch

William Lam is a Senior Staff Solution Architect working in the VMware Cloud team within the Cloud Infrastructure Business Group (CIBG) at VMware. He focuses on Cloud Native technologies, Automation, Integration and Operation for the VMware Cloud based Software Defined Datacenters (SDDC). https://williamlam.com/

My name is Jesper Alberts, and I'm a VMware enthusiast from the Netherlands. I was born in 1989 in Utrecht and have always lived near the middle of the Netherlands. I've always had an interest in IT ever since the first computer arrived at our house. During my career, I went from an all-round IT administrator to a consultant specializing in different products from VMware. Over the years, I've gained much experience with implementing, migrating, designing, and managing all kinds of environments. On my blog(https://www.vjal.nl/), you can expect to find all kinds of content, from PowerCLI code to reports of my adventures in my homelab or customer environments.

Paul has enjoyed decades of being an IT Professional, doing a lot of hands-on deployments of x86 servers and VMware installs during his 21 years at IBM, and had a lot of HCI conversations with customers when working as an SE at VMware. Since 2019, he's enjoying his work as a Solutions Architect at Dell Technologies, with a focus on helping Enterprise customers right-size solutions to their complex IT challenges. Paul created TinkerTry.com in 2011, and has created over 1,100 technical articles and 650 videos. His close looks at the vSphere install and upgrade process has produced numerous revelations about VMware licensing (vExpert / VMUGAdvantage / Essentials) and support, and the variety of upgrade techniques. Many of his home lab challenges were of the self-induced variety, others were related to unusual use-cases. Once the rough edges were resolved, he used the lessons-learned to finalize his configuration on his 8 core Xeon D-1541 "production" server. This crucial always-on system is where his VCSA 7.0 Update 3 resides, along with daily automated backups of his critical VMs, and of his 12 core Windows 11 workstation were all his content creation at TinkerTry is done. He's doing 4K video editing from this workstation on triple monitors that are located in another room 20 feet away, keeping his office quiet and cool. Topics he's covered at TinkerTry include automated graceful ESXi shutdowns, UPS battery failures, router and network issues, and long shipping delays that all conspired to break his lab. Reading is work is like coming along for a ride through his deep dives into exactly what went down during Paul’s relentless evening and weekend tinkering, and also learn exactly how he ultimately prevailed over some small and not-so-small issues. Along the way, you’ll see the variety of simple tools he’s come to rely upon in the 17 years since his first VCP, when tuning his compact and efficient home data center, running the latest VMware ESXi 7.0 Update 3, gearing up for torture testing of the new Intel Xeon D-1700 processor including thermal imaging with a FLIR camera and carefully measuring noise as well. He's also wandered into the wonderful world of home tech, sustainability, and EVs lately too, covering those adventures at TinkerTry as well, always with a focus on optimizing the ownership experience while reducing costs. HP: https://tinkertry.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TinkerTry

Johan van Amersfoort works as a Technologist at ITQ Consultancy, where he is responsible for the technical strategy within the End-User Computing and Artificial Intelligence areas. He is the author of the VDI Design Guide Book Series, host of multiple tech podcasts (like EUC Digest, Unexplored Territory, and In de Aap Gelogeerd), a vExpert, and one of the 19 VMware Certified Design Experts (VCDXs) globally in the Desktop and Mobility area. He loves to talk about EUC, GPUs, AI stuff, and CrossFit, and of course: Homelabs! He has been building and using labs since the late 90s and has extensive experience in designing them with a great WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor). His latest lab runs EUC workloads, AI workloads, virtualized VR workloads (such as Star Wars Squadrons) and much, much more.. HP: https://vhojan.nl/ & https://vhojan.nl/biolinks

In order to provide upkeep of my skill set, I saw the purpose of creating a homelab where I can practice of what I read from eBooks, Online Training & CBT's, White Papers & Technical Presentations. As I worked for many VAR's I found it hard to use a shared labs; if you shared the same space with other Virtual Engineers & Architects, everybody had there on idea of what a lab should be and with multiple configurations occurring daily the lab environment change. The key was to ensure we ALL had the basic concepts of Design, Installation, Configuration and Troubleshooting Methods End to End. This helps me develop strong MS Visio Diagrams (Digital Whiteboards) for the Customers I service. HP: http://www.gregelectronics.com/

I'm Sargon Khizeran, I work as a Technical Account Manager for VMware. My homelab journey started originally started as wanting to gear up to buy a lab for CCNA / network admin studying, while I earned my CCNA, gaining more into virtualization once encountering VMware made me want to start with that route. I started off with running everything on just VMware Workstation on a PC, then led exploring NAS devices, that is when I purchased my first Synology DS412+ and started trying to learn vSphere/vCenter. I decided to build on my networking so I bought some Cisco L3 managed switches, from there I wanted to also ante up my server game, and wanted hands-on experience with physical servers, so I purchased Dell R610s off e-bay where I can start installing ESXi directly on the host. my networking demands grew and then began building out Ubiquiti networking in my house. This broke away from a regular Asus Wireless router..eventually I continue building on and enhancing. It's been a constantly buying parts, stocking up, and trying to learn to plan better and think of projects. HP: https://www.khizeran.com

Jim Millard is currently a Sr SE for VMware, and has been in the industry since 1992. He built the beginnings of a home lab in 1998 with a pair of modems and a desktop PC running NetWare 5 that could demand-dial and bond multiple POTS lines for better Internet access. A decade later—and many years of struggling with physical servers in his home environment—he cobbled together a couple of Dell 2850 surplus servers with a PX6-300d NAS box and had his first vSphere lab. Jumping from the customer to the VAR space as a deployment engineer, Jim used his lab to practical ends and achieved numerous industry certifications. With slow growth and gradual alterations, Jim's lab is now equivalent to many small business implementations, and allows him to demonstrate almost all the on-premises capabilities that VMware offers. HP: http://blog.millard.org/