IT Security is hard. You have to keep hacking away.

Blog

I’m not much of a blogger…

But here’s one I did years ago.  Averaged 17,000 hits per day… for about 2 days.  My little, teeny contribution to the Internet.  I believe it may have helped some travellers on the same path.

Take a look at “World’s Smallest VMware ESXi Server“.  Wrote it because I know how very many hours it takes to build a custom system and felt confident all the parts actually worked.  Together.  All the time.

That post was ranked #2 for the month of July, and rose briefly into the top-10 most popular posts all-time on https://www.reddit.com/r/vmware.

October 2019

That little puppy is still running rock-solid.  I’ve got 200 VMs on the disk, and usually run 32 of them at a time now.  (80% Linux / 20% Windows).  Great investment!

But later I added Intel NUC “Skull Canyons” as additional ESXi servers.  They’re awesome.

Pros:  Incredibly, they’re only 1/3 the size of my previous, already teeny, server.  And the Skull Canyons have 32GB of RAM (vs. 16 max in previous).

Cons:  Has Intel i7 instead of Xeon.  And 2nd NIC is through USB port.  (Though not a problem, since I’ve settled on using the 2nd NIC solely for the management network.)

Reliability:  No problems.  Been running few years, and carry them around everywhere in my knapsack – including airplane travel.  I haven’t gone past 30 active VMs yet, but I need to take it up to 50 or more.  Based on current results my confidence is very high.

Open Events

Open Events are open to anyone who wants to improve their IT Security skills, meet others, and have fun!  We get great feedback from sys admins, network admins, web programmers, and IT-Sec consultants and practitioners - of all skill levels.

Corporate/Departmental

Corporate/Department Events are for groups who want to have a fun and challenging team-building event.  There's no better, faster, or more effective way to build IT Security skills, than to put the team into a competitive environment.  We can do this on- or off-site.  Great pricing if we combine your team event with others.

Student Events

Student Events started at Algonquin College in June 2012.  Since then, we've done similar events at McGill University for Electrical, Computer and Software engineering students, Carleton U "Learn to Win" program, and La Cité Collégiale.  If you are interested in having an event at your school then let us know.

Groups & Associations

Group and Association Events can be an exciting and engaging addition to your calendar.  A hands-on, fun-filled and challenging activity that your members will really look forward to.  They'll improve their IT Security skills, and earn CPE and other professional credits.