Building an ESXi server for Network Engineers – Part 1 iDrac7 and Raid Setup

Welcome to Network Engineer Pro. I’m Rafael, CCIE 64356. Have you ever wanted to build your own virtualization server so you can studying for certs like the CCNA, CCNP and CCIE? Or easily run CML, GNS, EVE-NG, Automation, CSR1000v and more? If so then
check out part 1 of my journey to build a virtualization beast for network engineers, it’s easy and I want to show you all the steps in the process.

I purchased this used Dell PowerEdge R620 from newegg.

https://www.newegg.com/Server-Workstation-Systems/SubCategory/ID-386

Don’t forget to check out my site and follow Network Engineer Pro on Facebook.
➤ https://www.networkengineerpro.com/
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The CCNA 200-301 Official Cert Guide Volume 1
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The CCNA 200-301 Official Cert Guide Volume 2
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For those of you who want to take your studies to the CCIE level, here are the first two books(of many) you should get your hands on.

Routing TCP/IP, Volume 1
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Routing TCP/IP, Volume 2
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—————————————————————————————————————————————————–
00:00 Intro
01:47 Server overview/tour
05:09 iDrac7 Configuration
07:38 iDRAC GUI Login and overview
09:04 Access the virtual console
09:58 Configure storage in RAID-5
14:33 Outro

In today’s video which is part 1 of 3, I am taking my new to me, Dell PowerEdge R620 and prepping it for an ESXi 6.7 installation. The end goal is to turn this server into a virtualization beast for network engineers to handle CML, GNS, EVE-NG, Automation, CSR1000v and more. I want to show you all the steps in the process. This is a 3 part mini series.

Part 1 (this video) includes IDRAC7 configuration and Raid setup.

Part 2 is downloading and installing ESXi 6.7
https://youtu.be/sQjwNvH98qg

Part 3 is creating a VM and installing EVE-NG Community Edition.
https://youtu.be/n9w6eVTUG7Q

How to import Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) IOSv Router & Switch images into EVE-NG
https://youtu.be/XlL6g7jIT74

I start by configuring the servers IDRAC7 port. Once the server is reachable on my network I configure my four 600GB hard drives in a Raid 5. This allows me to tolerate a single hard drive failure.

So let me tell you why I am building this server.
The reason I got this server is because I’m a network engineer, I’m constantly testing and labbing things out for work, studying for certifications or i just straight up forgot how something works so i go an lab it out.

I use a combination of csr1000v’s, cisco modeling labs, eve-ng and all kinds of other things. I was running all those on VMware workstation player, which is a type 2 hypervisor installed on my windows 10 pc.

That windows 10 pc is also used for video editing, photoshop and gaming and it was just starting to be too much for it and i was running out of resources.

So I wanted to get something dedicated just for networking and labbing purposes that I don’t have to worry about running out of resources for hopefully a long time.

#CCNA #CCNP #CCIE