Home laboratory IT specialist

An employee of NetApp, an Ethernet technology specialist and co-author of several guides and Best Practices for using NetApp FAS storage systems, Trey Layton on his blog shows his home IT lab where he works at home, writing technical documentation and testing.

“Some of the equipment, such as the FAS2000 storage system, was provided to me for a while by NetApp, which I am currently working at. I develop and test user-recommended configurations and architectures, and I work mostly at home. However, I bought most of the Cisco network infrastructure in my “labs” on my own for several years, including my internal telephone system based on Cisco CallManager Express on the Cisco 2800 series integrated router, which includes all of my home IP phones. Some devices, such as the Cisco Nexus 5000 modular 10G Ethernet switch, were leased from Cisco itself, as I was doing some work for one of their customers with NetApp.

About 3 kilometers of CAT6 cables were laid around the house, and one and a half kilometers of the RG-6 coaxial cable used to connect and transmit the DirecTV satellite receiver signal to consumers in the rooms of the house, as well as several fiber optic lines from the basement of the house where the main equipment is located to my workplace. cabinet To power the equipment, two independent 20-amp power lines were installed in the basement. ”

“When this house was built a few years ago, I agreed with the builders and my friend and I laid all these wires in just one weekend, so all the wiring, except electricity, was made by me,” says Trey, “Each room in the house has at least 8 CAT6 inputs. In addition, several Cisco Wireless IP Phones are working through the Airport Extreme access point. ”

Such a “dense” home lab, which could be envied by another Russian middle-class company, allows Trey to work at NetApp primarily at home.

Well, what kind of IT specialist without a cat?

“His name is Peyton,” says Trey. "He loves Macs and lying on the table, watching me type."