Best router for CCNA?

Street

Street

Street

Soldato
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Well I'm going to be doing my CCNA soon and am wondering what router is the best to get to practise on?

I've seen lots of recommendations, 2500s, 2600s, 800s etc but I haven't got a clue which one is the best..

Ideally I'd like it to be able to work with Virgin cable as then I can use it in my new house too!

Thanks,
Andy
 
A single router isn't going to help much with CCNA, you wont be able to practice any of the routing protocols and things like frame relay and VLANs. To cover the CCNA subject you ideally need 3 routers and 2 switches, such as the 2610 routers and 2900 switches.

Once configured right you should be able to simply plug your cable modem into one of the fast ethernet ports on the router, so make sure the router has sufficient fast ethernet ports for what you want to do.
 
Just bear in mind none of the 2500, 2600 and 800 have very good throughput. To actually pass 50Mbit reliably under all conditions you really need a 2800 of some kind (which I suspect you won't fancy the price of). A 1841 will do it under most circumstance but Cisco only officially rate is as 37Mbit or so and my lab tests suggest that's about right.
 
Yeh I was planning on getting a couple 2900 switches, just wasn't sure on the routers needed, didn't realise I'd need as many as three!

The 2800 is a bit out of my budget unfortunately. It sucks that the others won't pass 50Mbit.. Looks like I'll stick with my IPCop router and just get a separate lab then! :(
 
Well there is no harm in connecting your lab up to your home network and just using a suitable home router for internet traffic. The reason you need multiple routers is so you can test things such as different routing protocols and see which route a packet will take, the election process for the DR and BDR when using OSPF, load balancing etc..

As for which specific models I wont be able to give which specificaly to get as the kit I used for my CCNA labs wasn't my own, but some of the students which I worked with highly recommended http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/ITelligentsia for their cisco kit.

If you plan on keeping your lab past your CCNA and perhaps expanding it for use as a CCNP lab then I would suggest waiting for someone in the know to say what kit to buy, because there is a lot of routers that wont have the functionality needed for CCNP.
 
Whats the advantage of going for the 2651xm over the 2611xm?

Thanks for the link Dist, will check them out! :)
 
paradigm said:
Mainly, double the packet throughput on the 2651XM compared to the 2611XM.
Click to expand...

I'm not really going to need the extra speed if its going to be just for testing purposes.. so might as well save the extra cash! :)

Edit: Might actually just got for the 2611s as they are a hell of a lot cheaper! :)
 
While were on this subject, does anyone happen to know a website that simply compares each model of router in terms of speed and capabilities. Ebay has such a wide range of cisco routers these days that when I eventually come to plan my own CCNP lab it is hard to know which routers are suitable and have the correct functionality. Same with switches too, although I guess they are less important in terms of functionality differences.
 
bigredshark said:
Just bear in mind none of the 2500, 2600 and 800 have very good throughput. To actually pass 50Mbit reliably under all conditions you really need a 2800 of some kind (which I suspect you won't fancy the price of). A 1841 will do it under most circumstance but Cisco only officially rate is as 37Mbit or so and my lab tests suggest that's about right.
Click to expand...

I have read that same PDF, but in my testing with real-world packet sizes I get far more!

An 871 for example is rated at something like 8Mbit, but can route at 90mbit and NAT at 40mbit with an internet MTU. Clearly that tails off massively as you add extra stuff into the path, but an 1841 will easily do more than 37Mbit in the real world.
 
DRZ said:
I have read that same PDF, but in my testing with real-world packet sizes I get far more!

An 871 for example is rated at something like 8Mbit, but can route at 90mbit and NAT at 40mbit with an internet MTU. Clearly that tails off massively as you add extra stuff into the path, but an 1841 will easily do more than 37Mbit in the real world.
Click to expand...

This is true, without specifying an MTU size however they do all seem to be within a few % of their stated maximum throughput.
 
The figures quoted for those numbers are maximum packet throughput @ 64-byte packets.

Change the 64-byte to a more common MTU / packet size and you get a much more sensible throughput than 37Mbit.
 
Interesting discussion on MTU and throughput testing. Will have to take a look at that myself.

Anyways, I can heartily recommend 2610 routers for CCNA, I have 5 myself now (Awesome for messing about with Frame Relay/multiple routing hops/ different L2 protocols).
 
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