I recently got inspired by one of my instructors to build a better way to host my VMs. He mentioned he built an ESXi cluster using six i7 Mac Minis which sounded totally cool to me. After some initial research, the hardware bug bit me and I decided I gotta try building one.
Then I remembered my other instructor’s advice — Information Security is a small industry and members should contribute in some way to the overall body of knowledge.
Transitioning to a new field requires a fair bit of re-training. Fortunately, I love learning new things and most of the things I’m learning is super cool. The SANS instructors are also really smart and friendly and happy to impart knowledge about awesome things.
“Start a blog or something.”, he said. “Start a blog?”, I thought. “Man, I hate writing. Especially if I have to do it regularly.” Anyway, if I was going to start a blog, documenting my VM cluster build would probably be worthwhile way to do it.
So after some more research I discovered I could actually build the cluster using Intel NUCs. I got so excited I even bought the parts!
Then I remembered that I really need to update my existing VM hosting infrastructure to current versions (since my clients are using it) before I can get on with screwing around with new toys.
So I broke out the 2012 Mac Pro I keep as an offsite spare and prepared to get it up to speed. Although a bit dusty, it is still a thing of beauty.
As you can see it really needs updating. Anyway, the plan is to get this up to El Capitan and VMware Fusion 8.0 Pro before I start building the new cluster. It shouldn’t take too long.
I’ll be documenting both builds in upcoming posts so I’ll reveal details of all this stuff later. Cheers.
The Infosec Noob 