Well, the first step is realizing it’s okay not to use it. My homelab is a mix of salvaged mini PCs and prosumer networking gear. It has nothing to do with the 6/7 figure gear i use at work, and i prefer it that way. Its simpler and lower stages, is quieter, and uses way less power. Nothing at all wrong either that.

That all said, if you do want to use it, there are many ways to start. First, you don’t need to plug both power supplies in, but you can. The server can run entirely on one of them. It has two in case one fails it can keep running, not because it needs 2x the power. For the monitor, yes you will likely need VGA. Servers rarely have modern video ports, because vga just works, costs nothing to add to a server, and is almost never used. Most of your interaction with a servee shouod be though “out of band,” which dell calls “idrac.” This is a seperate networking port labeld on the several that lets you connect to a website, put in a password, and then fully control the server. That includes powering it on, reboots, loading disc image iso files, on and on. The idrac will stay powered even when the server is off.

You may or may not have qn idrac license for that server. If you dont and your boss can’t give you one, you can use something like jetkvm instead when it’s released.

As to what to do either it, i wpuld recommend installing different hypervisors or kubernetes suites and playing around. Proxmox, xcp-ng, k3s, harvestor, on and on. Once you find one you like, figure out hoe to use automation software to setup VMs and containers, like terraform, ansible, or nixOS.

Good luck, and enjoy. Getting started from scratch can be a lot, but it can also be a lot of fun. Go into expecting to fail, fail a lot and try to learn what you like. That’s the best thing a homelab is for.