Upgrades people! Upgrades!
Finally got some extra money to upgrade the lab, I was starting to worry about running out of space...
I picked up an HPE ec200a after reading about it on ServeTheHome, an online forum for homelab enthusiasts. It's got a modern Xeon D-1518 (4c/8t), Can hold up to 64GB DDR4 ECC, 2 drive bays, 2 NICs, iLO and an M.2 Slot!
![](https://blog.phoenixnet.tech/content/images/2021/11/image-57.png)
So-far, it's been a super great addition to my lab, I offloaded storage to my NAS via NFS, and boot Proxmox as a hypervisor off of an M.2 SSD. I ended up loading it with 16GB of DDR4 ECC to start, but I plan on adding another stick eventually.
![](https://blog.phoenixnet.tech/content/images/2021/11/image-56.png)
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I also acquired a better UPS, an APC Smart 750w UPS. It's got a 2-battery setup, a nice informational display, and of course NUT support for connecting to my Synology NAS. Had to rebuild the batteries, they were from 2011! Well overdue!
![](https://blog.phoenixnet.tech/content/images/2021/11/PXL_20211104_221825150.jpg)
I've also started working on rebuilding my on-premises AD setup, first starting with learning AzureAD Sync so that I can SSO between AzureAD and on-premises AD. So-far so good! I can sign into my NAS with the same credentials I use for O365!
Finally, I've also started implementing concepts I'm picking up at work, DUO being one I really liked. DUO permits MFA on the hardware level, securing access to terminals, desktops, laptops as well as online services. I've implemented it on my personal laptop, and my on-premises DC! I've also implemented it into services like Bitwarden!
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