More photos on flickr!

This rack is (in my mind) supersexy (for a rack ) and I couldn’t await to install my stuff inside. So I discovered for a not so short period of the day how the hell to put the rails from both DELL servers inside. In the end, I had to put the older PowerEdge 1650 onto the base and attach the rails for it to the very first unit. The reason? Well, the rails are a bit too long, so I could not connect the back ends of to the back supports. Putting it to the bottom allows the 1650 to gently slide above the end of the rack and with the width of the server, the rails are nice in place.

The R210 was more or less easier to install. I had to turn both ends by 180° (like it was mentioned in the instructions). It does not really fit to the front side, but it’s ok – and fits within the rack so that I’m able to close the glass door.

After putting the rack to the basement with help of my wife (isn’t it great to have such a flexible wife!? ), I put both servers inside and connected the R210 with the eSATA drive, 2x GBit network and of course power, keyboard & VGA display. The server starts as hoped

Here’s a screenshot of the server after booting up all 4 current VMs:

Both – R210 & Onnto DataTale are connected to my smaller APC UPS. I hope it can get VMware ESXi to work with it, so that it automatically shuts down/holds all VMs and shut itself down if there’s a power outage.

This is just the first step. All my 19″ equipment will move to the new rack over the next few weeks, but earlier (planned for Saturday), the old PowerEdge 1650 will be the host for Endian Firewall which allows me use both DSL lines the same time and split ports to the different lines. The reason is quit simply: If I want to send for example a 10MB file to a client, I don’t want that Exchange fills the complete 1MBit/s upstream of the main DSL line. This line is also used for surfing etc., the 2nd DSL line (Vodafone) with it’s static IP and non-disconnect should so this for me. Also, I don’t want to have speed issues in case a user access the OWA of Exchange.

As always: More to come, here!

Ciao
Dennis