The VMware Lab

The lab is currently a two node cluster based around vSphere 5.5.
Servers
Both hosts are ML350 G6 servers, the first node is a dual quad-core Intel E5620 system with 84GB RAM with an added SAS Expander card to allow the use of a second 8-bay disk shelf.
The second host has dual hex-core Intel E5645 with 96GB RAM.
Both hosts have the optional 1GB FBWC for the onboard controller and around 1TB of local disk each.
Storage
The shared storage used is a Synology DS1513+ with five 3TB WD RED. Currently here are four 512GB ISCSI LUNs presented to the two hosts and the rest of the storage makes up a NFS/SMB/AFS share holding the multi-TB photo archive.
For backup there is a 2-bay 2TB ReadyNAS for ISO images and virtual appliances.
Unattached as this time is a HP MSA1500 FC array with two shelves full of 300GB 10K disks. (The reason it is unused is due to the noise!!)
Networking
The servers and storage back onto a Cisco SG-300 26-port gigabit switch which currently has only 5 ports available.
The switch is directly linked (via 30m CAT 5e) to the UPC Cable router which is 200Mbps download and 10Mbps upload.

Future expansion?
I’m looking at another Synology or QNAP fitted with either Crucial 940GB or Samsung 1TB SSDs. This would form the Tier 1 storage for the vCloud (management layer) virtual servers and for DBs used in the vCloud environment. The Tier 2 storage would then be the Synology DS1513+ used for app & web layer vCloud VMs.
A Cisco SG-200 network switch is then likely to be needed to augment the network port capacity.