Real hardware infrastructure lab used for networking, Linux, and infrastructure engineering experiments.
This repository documents the design, build, and evolution of a real home infrastructure lab focused on networking, Linux systems, and infrastructure engineering.
The lab is used to experiment with real infrastructure hardware, networking architecture, and system administration in a controlled environment.
- Learn Linux system administration
- Practice networking and infrastructure concepts
- Build and maintain a small home datacenter
- Experiment with virtualization and container workloads
- Document infrastructure design and troubleshooting
- Dell Pro Micro Plus (Intel Core Ultra 7 265, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — compute node
Used for Linux, virtualization, and future cluster expansion
- UniFi Dream Machine Pro Max (router / firewall)
- UniFi Switch
- Structured CAT6 Ethernet cabling
- Patch panel
- Synology RS1221+
- RAID storage for backups and lab services
- APC Rack UPS for power protection
-
Falcon Talon workstation
Ryzen 7 • RTX 5090 • 96GB RAM • 16TB NVMe -
Mac Studio M1 Max
Used for development and documentation
The lab is built around a wall-mounted network rack with structured cabling and dedicated infrastructure hardware.
Diagram showing the physical layout of the rack including:
- patch panel
- PoE switch
- gateway
- NAS
- UPS power system
Logical network architecture showing how devices and networks are connected.
- UniFi Dream Machine Pro Max (gateway / firewall)
- UniFi PoE switch
- Structured CAT6 Ethernet cabling
- Synology RS1221+
- RAID storage
- APC rack UPS
- Falcon Talon workstation
- Mac Studio M1 Max
Planned infrastructure improvements:
- Dell OptiPlex micro nodes
- Linux virtualization cluster (Proxmox or KVM)
- container workloads
- infrastructure monitoring
- logging and observability
Additional documentation:
Current learning areas:
- Linux administration
- networking fundamentals
- infrastructure architecture
- virtualization
- containerization
The following images document the physical build process of the infrastructure rack.
Initial installation of the wall-mounted rack and infrastructure components.
Installation of networking equipment.
Completed rack configuration.
Detailed infrastructure experiments, networking labs, and troubleshooting notes are documented on the website.
Eugene Ivanov
Infrastructure Engineering
Austin, Texas
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eugeneivanov-dev
Website
https://eugeneivanov.dev