Cisco has recently announced that the Nexus 1000v can be downloaded and installed free of charge. This is great news for those of us who use VMware products, and especially great news for those of us who have home labs and can’t afford to spend large sums of money on licences.
Using this excellent guide, you will be able to build an entire virtualised setup from the ground up in no time at all.
However, if your like me and your PCs are 7+ years old, it is time to upgrade. I’ve been doing a bit of research, and this is what I have come up with so far:
- CPU: i7 3770k
- Mobo: Asrock Z77 Pro4
- GPU: Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD7850 OC 2GB GV-R785OC-2GD
- RAM: G.Skill Ares 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3-1600
- SSD: Plextor M5S 256GB
- HDD1: Seagate Barracuda 2TB (ST2000DM001)
- PSU: Antec High Current Gamer 520W
- ODD: DVD burner
All that’s really left is to choose a case and buy the above mentioned bits and pieces. As per the photos of my lab (which can be seen at the bottom of the About Me page), I don’t need any additional keyboards, mice or monitors, which is why they these components are missing from my shopping list above.
Once I have purchased the PC and have got it all up and running, I will post another blog entry describing the process and any gotchas I may have hit along the way.
Update
I have purchased my new PC. The specs have changed quite a lot since this post.
As always, if you have any questions or have a topic that you would like me to discuss, please feel free to post a comment at the bottom of this blog entry, e-mail at will@oznetnerd.com, or drop me a message on Reddit (OzNetNerd).
Note: The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and not those of my employer.
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