In 2012, I intend to continue and expand my virtualization horizons and that will mean expanding my lab.  My lab currently consists of a Dell PowerEdge 2950, an EMC VNXe SAN (generously provided by EMC!) and a couple of desktops that run VMware Workstation 8.  My current lab server – the 2950 – has some shortcomings, such as the lack of SLAT (Second Level Address Translation), which disallows the use of Hyper-V 3.0 in some situations.  I predict that Hyper-V 3.0 will be a hit, so it’s worthy of deep examination.

So, I took the plunge a bit early and bought myself a Christmas present: A Dell PowerEdge R410 from xByte Technologies, a reseller of both new and refurbished hardware.  My new R410 has 32 GB of RAM, 2 x Xeon 5503 processors, 2 x 146 GB 10K RAM SAS disks and a Dell PERC 6/I RAID adapter (remember, I have the SAN for storage, so only need minimal capacity on the server).

I’m excited to dig deeper into newer technologies and providing the readers at VirtualizationAdmin.com with up-to-the-minute information in 2012!