A detailed walkthrough of my home lab build. I plan to use this to:
- Set up my own cloud-like infrastructure to play with
- Provide a mechanism to create realtime, failsafe backups
- Perform further quantum computing research through simulation
- Perform further security research
- Begin AI and ML research
- Produce music
- 2xAsus ZenWifi AX XT8
- TP-Link TL-SG105
- Hand-Built Multi-Purpose Switch
- Network Attached Storage
- StarTech 15U 19" 4-Post Adjustable Depth
- ARM-based Mac Pro
I would have like to connect the core switch directly to the primary XT8, but it didn't have enough available ports. I could have ran a dual connection to the core switch and then hung everything off that, but I wanted more resiliency on the right side of the diagram (if my core switch goes down, which is more likely than the TL-SG105, the whole network would become unusable).
The other configuration I considered was the secondary XT8 node linked to the primary, but the backhaul doesn't support bonding that I know of. I figured that if I wanted to support a dual connection to the core switch while providing the resiliency mentioned in the paragraph above, I had the option of switching one connection through the secondary XT8 or the TL-SG105. Since the XT8 is a far more complex device and I was making my decision based on expected availability, it made sense to arrange things as I have.
I plan to augment the setup eventually, to build the following as a platform for OpenStack:
Since the Mac Pro will likely ship with 2 10Gbe RJ45 ports, I hope to add a dual SFP+ card to enable the above configuration. If it ships with SFP+ ports, I could use all 4 to wire up the Mac and then 4 RJ45 for the NAS. If there are no drivers available for a dual SFP+ card on MacOS, I can use 4xRJ45 and put a dual SFP+ in the NAS (already the plan) and use the 6 RJ45 ports on the switch to achieve essentially the same setup. SFP+ saves power - the primary reason I am hoping to use the technology.