Kicking Off Between the Clouds: AI on Old GPUs, NetAlertX, and DevOps Mindset

🎙️ Introducing Between the Clouds: A Podcast for the Home Lab and Hybrid Cloud Era

What does it really mean to live “between the clouds”? For many of us in IT whether you're a home lab enthusiast, systems architect, or cloud-native developer it means operating at the intersection of private infrastructure and public cloud services. And that’s exactly the space this new podcast is here to explore.

Today, I’m excited to launch the very first episode of Between the Clouds, a weekly show where we build, break, and learn in real-time. I’m Brandon Lee, the creator behind VirtualizationHowto.com, longtime home labber, VMware vExpert, DevOps engineer, and someone who’s spent years getting hands-on with everything from Proxmox clusters to LLMs running on mini PCs, Kubernetes clusters, and serverless functions in AWS.

This podcast is a natural extension of the work I’ve been doing across my blog, YouTube channel, and home lab. Only now, we’re diving deeper, more conversationally, and with plenty of room to explore the tools and trends that are reshaping how we run infrastructure in 2025.

What You’ll Hear in Episode One

In this pilot episode, I cover:

* Running local AI on ancient GPUs: Can a 10-year-old GTX 1060 still handle modern LLMs like Mistral 7B and Gemma 2B? You might be surprised—because I was.

* PCI passthrough with Proxmox: I walk through passing a GPU to both VMs and LXC containers to run Ollama + Open WebUI in the home lab.

* NetAlertX: A fork of PyAlert that offers real-time network monitoring, Home Assistant integration, and modern notification options.

* DevOps Career Tips: I break down 10+ practical steps for transitioning from traditional IT roles into DevOps—including building a home lab, learning Git, using AI as a tutor, and getting hands-on with Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, and more.

I also share two of my all-time favorite DevOps reads: The Phoenix Project and The DevOps Handbook—which, if you haven’t read yet, should absolutely be on your radar.

Why This Podcast?

Most people in this space don’t live fully in the cloud—or fully on-prem. We’re building and learning in a hybrid world where Kubernetes clusters run in garages and homegrown CI/CD pipelines push code to real cloud environments. That’s where Between the Clouds lives: in the tension, the experimentation, and the stories of what actually works (and what doesn’t).

Each episode will be a blend of:

* Tech walkthroughs and tools I’m using now

* Commentary on trends in virtualization, cloud, and security

* Community highlights and insights from the field

* Real-world lessons from failed experiments and surprising wins

* Interviews of industry professionals

Whether you're spinning up VMs on a $400 mini PC, running Ollama with GPU passthrough, or diving into CI/CD pipelines and Terraform code, this podcast is for you.

🎧 Listen Now

If this sounds like your kind of content, hit Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes and consider becoming a paid subscriber for premium content and podcasts. And if you enjoy it, please consider sharing and restacking with a fellow home labber, cloud tinkerer, or DevOps hopeful.

Let’s build something great—between the clouds.

—Brandon

Get full access to Between the Clouds Newsletter at bleevht.substack.com/subscribe