MattDLEA Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 Im always weary about spending school money, I try to get them the best deal I can from the suppliers. While I'm not officially a member of school staff, they pay for my services on a yearly basis. Up until now in School I have used the same spec computer as the rest of the staff an inter duo 1.3gh with 2gb of ram. however as I am getting more into the Network Admin side of it, before I was happy keeping things ticking over. Now I want to try to progress the network. All my work at the moment is live on the server, I don't really have a test bed to do anything on, so its live and hope for the best. A few weeks ago one of these changes resulted in students not been able to log in for a time until I reverted the settings. What Im thinking is if I had a better computer I could use Virtual Box and test things in there properly with out having to try it on the proper network. Do you think this is a reasonable request?
DevilsAdvocate Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 (edited) You shouldn't ever be in a situation where you are forced to 'tinker' in a live environment. Seems perfectly reasonable to me. The fact you were having to perform tasks on the live server forcing downtime for students could also be used to back up the argument. Edited February 13, 2014 by DevilsAdvocate
abillybob Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 Trial and error my friend. I've always had to make do with tinkering on a live environment and if it gets out of hand and goes upside down, it results into me getting real stressed and starting all over again as quickly as I can I invested in a personal Alienware laptop and take that to work everyday this now enables me to tinker in VMware workstation without messing up the entire network. Tried doing this on a Mac Pro they gave me but with it's 4GB ram it really struggled.
rich_tech Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 you can buy a cheap second hand server easily enough from suppliers on here, (I wont mention the specific names as im not sure of the rules, but I think we all know who) we use that as our backup server and run test VMs on it too, I would recommend that route and would say no to mucking about in a live environment, it can be very stressy especially when something that every member of staff relies on like your print server
X-13 Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 This is perfectly reasonable. My desktop is a beast because I was supposed to be running VMs to test software and configs... not that I've ever given enough notice to test anything.
witch Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 @ict_Direct are the ones to talk to. I needed a better computer to work on and they provided me with a gorgeous refurbished beasty which does what I want and was very reasonably priced 4
MattDLEA Posted February 13, 2014 Author Posted February 13, 2014 I'd like to point out that the server I 'tinker' on is the only serve in school so does everything
X-13 Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 I'd like to point out that the server I 'tinker' on is the only serve in school so does everything Get a machine that can run VMs.
36Degrees Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 Get a machine to tinker on! I bought a Dell Precision workstation from eBay - dual Xeon processors, RAID controller & cheaper than any rack-mounted equivalent.
ICTDirect_Dave Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 @ict_Direct are the ones to talk to. I needed a better computer to work on and they provided me with a gorgeous refurbished beasty which does what I want and was very reasonably priced We're already talking Get a machine to tinker on! I bought a Dell Precision workstation from eBay - dual Xeon processors, RAID controller & cheaper than any rack-mounted equivalent. Was that from our Ebay store by any chance? We sell hundreds on there
vikpaw Posted February 14, 2014 Posted February 14, 2014 Perfectly reasonable. Get a test server and also upgrade your box so it can cope. Ideally an x64 with 8GB RAM. Else you have a bottleneck and get frustrated when you can't access the VMs and do other work.
diagdave Posted February 14, 2014 Posted February 14, 2014 Trial and error my friend. I've always had to make do with tinkering on a live environment and if it gets out of hand and goes upside down, it results into me getting real stressed and starting all over again as quickly as I can I invested in a personal Alienware laptop and take that to work everyday this now enables me to tinker in VMware workstation without messing up the entire network. Tried doing this on a Mac Pro they gave me but with it's 4GB ram it really struggled. I highly recommend the alienware, I'm using hyperv client in windows 8 but also dual boot server 2012. I'm lucky the sixth form I work at got it for me as I work a lot at home doing software and systems development and a desktop wasn't practical . just remember to get fast disks as that will likely be your bottleneck. Oh also try and get an older alienware as new ones only take 2 drives.
diagdave Posted February 14, 2014 Posted February 14, 2014 If its for a test rig, Windows 8.1 with hyper-V. Just make sure you have plenty of ram. You could use VMware workstation - but that costs ££! It could also depend, if you have a virtual infrastructure then it may be easier to stick with the same hypervisor so you can download a copy of the systems onto your machine to play with, but i would still go Windows 8.1. Who uses the start menu anyway?? Win+R
vikpaw Posted February 14, 2014 Posted February 14, 2014 I could have sworn VMware server or PC or whatever it was for PC was free. Fusion cost money. I used 8.1 recently, no major prob. Bottom corner and type what want much like win 7.
fairm010 Posted February 14, 2014 Posted February 14, 2014 VMWare player? I use that it home to do my testing and has never failed me.
diagdave Posted February 14, 2014 Posted February 14, 2014 I thought you can only run virtual machines in VMWare player not create them?
featured_spectre Posted February 14, 2014 Posted February 14, 2014 have a word with @ICTDirect_Dave, @CPLTD, @Millgate. @VeryPC as they all have good prices for low spec servers. This situation is where you want something off the network, so a HP Microserver may even be a good choice. 3
fairm010 Posted February 14, 2014 Posted February 14, 2014 I thought you can only run virtual machines in VMWare player not create them? I've created and ran virtual machines no problem at all for years.
diagdave Posted February 14, 2014 Posted February 14, 2014 Sorry guess i was wrong https://www.vmware.com/products/player/faqs.html - fairm010 hope you are members of the VMware Academic Program or its not free
fairm010 Posted February 14, 2014 Posted February 14, 2014 From what in understand its free for personal use and I only use it at home for personal development
MattDLEA Posted February 17, 2014 Author Posted February 17, 2014 Like to Thank @ICTDirect_Dave for his patience with the amount of questions I have been throwing at him recently. 1
ICTDirect_Dave Posted February 17, 2014 Posted February 17, 2014 Like to Thank @ICTDirect_Dave for his patience with the amount of questions I have been throwing at him recently. You're welcome as always sir! Glad I could help
burgemaster Posted February 19, 2014 Posted February 19, 2014 HP Microserver from Ebuyer with £100 cash back at the moment. Totals is about £78... If you upgrade the RAM to 8gig your laughing. Also you can sell the EEC ram it comes with on eBay to claw some more back.
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