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Free Infrastructure Resources – Host, Network, Storage and more

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Originally posted at http://www.virtxpert.com/free-infrastructure-resources-host-network-storage-and-more/

 

Below is a list of free infrastructure resources available to those building labs or on a shoestring budget.  Heck maybe some of these tools can save you a few bucks on certain areas of your project so you can invest in other areas.  If there are any you are using or have experience with I'd love to hear about them.


Hypervisors

  • VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi):  The best platform, IMO, hopefully you can spring for at least Essentials plus
  • Citrix Xen Server:  Let’s face it, at a startup or SMB we may not be able to afford a commercial license, Xen provides Live Migration for free but good luck supporting it.
  • KVM:  Opensource platform, not for the faint of heart
  • Rackspace OpenStack:  Openstack gets a lot of the buzz, but on a budget when your neck is on the line for support may be a little scary to implement  Rackspace aims to change their with an easy to setup distro.

Storage

  • Nexenta Community Edition:  Turn bare metal equipment into a fully functional NAS.  18TB limit on the community edition would be fine for most (all?) SMBs.
  • FreeNAS:  A very solid opensource project with years off support and development behind it.

Backup and Recovery

  • VMware Data Protection (VDP):  Free with many versions of vSphere and based on EMC Avamar
  • VMware Replication:  Another item included for free with many versions of vSphere, get a copy of your data offsite in case of a disaster.
  • PHD Virtual ReliableDR:  What good is backup if your office is gone, Free version has some limitations but like VMware Replication some DR is better than no DR.

Monitoring

  • vCenter Operations Manager Foundation:  Another freebie when you purchase vSphere.  You paid for the awesomest hypervisor, why not take advantage of the tools you got included?
  • Veeam One:  You virtualized your infrastructure which is great, but you can’t just peak your head into the datacenter and see if everything is flashing green.  Veeam allows you to monitor your virtual infrastructure.
  • RVTools:  I haven’t had a chance to test this yet, lots of people swear by it.
  • Xangati:  Another handy tool to watch over your gear, free version is good for one server which, if you have one server, is actually great.
  • Nagios and Icinga:  The defacto opensource montioring tool and its fork.  Developers can’t get along forever.
  • Opsview:  Based on Nagios, provides a nicer GUI, though honestly its been 4 years since I used Nagios core.
  • Dell Foglight for Virtualization (Free):  A package of several free resources from Dell/Quest.  I am glad to see Dell is still maintaining the free products.  Vladan Seget has a nice write up here on the features.

Logging

  • VMware Syslog Collector and Dump Collector:  Included in vCenter download – at some point there is going to be a problem/error and having your logs centrally collected will be nice.  Seems like busy work now but you will be glad when you need it.
  • Splunk:  Free version, as most do, has some limitations but as you grown you can remove these with a paid version.
  • GreyLog:  A new logging tool to the OS world, built on MongoDB.  Installation script from GitHub

Automation

  • VMware PowerCLI:  Free, included, have I mentioned all the stuff thats included with your paid vSphere license?  I think I did.
  • vCenter Orchestrator:  Yea you guessed it, included when you buy!
  • Windows PowerShell:  Installed with Windows – Its there, why click around when you can write a script (I am guilty of not doing this enough)
  • AutoIT:  Another popular scripting platform.
  • Puppet:  I will start by saying I dont know enough about it, I need to learn more, the Enterprise version is free for up to 10 nodes

Networking

  • Zen Loadbalancer:  Sometimes you need more than one server, web, View Connection etc but real load balancers get pricey
  • Vyatta:  An opensource router, great for virtual environments where L3 equipment may not be available.
  • pfSense:  Another OS loadbalancer
  • Untangle:  Free firewall, really just several other OS projects packaged together but has a nice GUI and means you dont have to package them together.
  • Smoothwall:  Yet another OS firewall
  • Endian :  Yet another OS firewall

Patching

  • Windows WSUS:  Think it goes without saying that Windows needs to be patched
  • RedHat Spacewalk:  Yes even Linux needs patches, you dont want a vulnerable Apache web server kicking around do you?
  • VMware Update Manager (VUM):  Something something, included vSphere something.  I wish VMware Go was still around, free and made patching a breeze

Training

  • VMware MyLearn:  Lots of great free classes from new features, DR training and even advanced topics such as vCloud Director.
  • VMware Learning:  An extension of MyLearn (IMO) with lots of free great vidoes, versus the slide/formal training style on MyLearn.
  • Local VMUG:  Great opportunity to meet new people and learn about the latest from the VMware community and vendors.
  • CodeAcademy:  Coding = automation.

Misc

Collaboration

  • MangoApps:  As with any free SaaS service, some limitations.
  • SocialCast:  Free for up to 50 users with some limitations.
  • Sharetronix:  Hey your still reading?  Cool, probably wondering what this is all about.  My other passion is collaboration, I hate email and “social” seems like a much better way to communicate.

Got one (or more) that you want added?  Send me a message.


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