vSphere on Open Compute – Part 1 Lab Setup

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This is part one of a few part series on the test I’m going to put the OCP Platform through. This first test will describe how the lab is setup. Next will be some basic “ghetto” load tests. Finally, we’ll throw some VDI at it.

The Hardware

Compute

For compute, we’ll be using the v1.0 Open Compute Platform (This thing here). Spec wise, it looks like this in vSphere5:
image

Dual socket, Hex Core @ 2.67Ghz, 48GB memory, 1x 1gb NIC

Storage

The server has 1x 250GB local sata drive. Additionally, the VMs for the testing will be living on my ix4-200d. Not exactly fast storage, but it’ll work to get the VMs going and beating this box up.

Networking

Between the host and the ix4-200d is an old unmanaged Dell 1gb 24 port switch. So, 1gb network connections all around (guess what we’re not testing 🙂

The Software

The Virtual Machines

In order to get a good handle on performance of the OCP box by itself, I’m running some infrastructure VMs in the lab for things like AD, DNS, vCenter, and the View components. As we move into posts on the specific tests I’ll describe a bit about the specific VMs that we’ll be using at that time. Hint: Most will be Windows of some flavor. (However, I’m open to Linux tests if you drop me a line in the comments).

VMware vSphere Stack

Here we’ll be using the following:

  • vCenter Server
  • ESXi 5
  • VMware View 5

Other Software

Some of this testing will be PowerCLI driven, using Invoke-VMScript and LoadStorm.

Note: Edited the post, was basically typing faster than I could think and implied View 5.1, when in reality, I’ll be testing on View 5.