heres your kit

@Jarian Gibson are you getting red or blue? my rack manufacturer is is neither of the known brands (http://rackstuds.com/versions/). i'm gonna go find my calipers and see how thick the rails are

Hmm will check

Looks like I'll need the blue ones

Hmmm, these can't hold as much weight as the regular metal cage nuts can. They will be okay for switches but risky for shelves

Someones has pics of the studs shearing with a 17 lb switch

Has anyone tried one one these Neat-Patch organizers (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009VBSRJK)? Instead of a traditional punch down patch panel at the top of the rack I wanted the ability to easily disconnect and move the rack if needed. I was going to get a feed through patch panel (RJ45 on front and rear) which is $190. Then I found this Neat-Patch for $68. I'm thinking I can use this with inline couplers (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IO3HJA4/) hidden inside the Neat-Patch. This way I can use 2 ft. color coded cables into the switch and it will all look neat plus the benefit of disconnecting the whole rack easily if needed.

For my travel demo kit I have a projector and that is my monitor when I need to troubleshoot something, the NUCs connected to the HDMI switcher and then the output to the projector. I also bought a slim keyboard that is RF so I can use it as soon as I power on equipment.

@User: shop Rii K12 ultra slim keyboard 2.4Ghz

The total umbilical is 11 inches circumference right now when I measured. I've toned out and am making smaller manageable umbilicals with Velcro spaced every 10 inches. I was going to buy a cable comb on Amazon to dress these a bit nicer but since these won't be visible in the cable channels I've foregone that idea for now. I've ordered some 1 gang and 2 gang brush plates so they look a bit nicer coming out of the now 3 holes in the drywall. Really hoping I don't have to do any drywall patching.

@Jason Samuel: those neat panels look nice. You can get the same clean look with 1 ft patch cables and not waste 2U of rack space. Probably not a big deal in a home lab but huge in a densely populated rack

@Steve Elgan: Thanks. Without a patch panel I couldn't figure out how to route cables cleanly to the front without keeping half a U of space open or using a 1U brush panel.

@User: thx, awesome picture of the case :-)

@User: @User what is the model number of the Zyxel Mgmt Switch you're using? Cisco is out of stock

It's my pleasure... it's a Zyxel GS1900-16 managed

Got it, yeah that will work fine for the 5x case. 10x for the future :-)

Guess I'll do some slide in brackets, like U to slide in the acryl plate with the SK's mounted on them

That's what I drew around them for you, then the network gear sat in a false floor power underneath

That grayish shades bit is the acrylics

Get 10mm acrylic and route slots for 3mm boards with the sks on them

Rackmount short depth ups recommendations?

Was looking at this one

Looks like microcenter carries ubnt now

Okay folks, needs some help here, I'm in doubt of the directions for the future proof portable lab case.

So NUC 6th NUC6i5SYH is $354, Intel NUC Skull NUC6i7KYk is $579 and SuperMicro SYS-E200-8D $850

Now the problem with NUC & Skull is clearly 32GB and 1GB, even if you do Nutanix CE the limit is 1Gpbs, with E-200 that's not the case but all my nodes (individual XenServer hosts) will use local storage and connect to NAS

as long as NAS is only 1Gbps there's no advantages of going 10Gbps switch, even with SDS

So I guess it's more logical and economical to go XenServer with 1TB Samsung EVO 850

than later, when available, add 256GB Samsung 960 EVO NVMe for Hot Tier in Nutanix CE (which I'll be testing when not doing my Master Classes)