CCNA lab

Mike78

Mike78

Mike78

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Joined
12 Sep 2012
Posts
14
Probably not the right website to be asking on.... but hey, you guys seem to know everything else about IT so I figure why not.

Pretty much my day-to-day job revolves around windows servers and Im getting a bit bored of it to be honest. Im hoping maybe to get into Cisco and get involved in the actual network design and troubleshooting network issues.

Can anyone give me any ideas on what I should I look for on building a small lab that would get me through ccna and possibly ccnp. I have a budget of say 500euro.

Ive been googling for the past hour or two and I cant really find any information that isnt horribly dated.

BTW: Im posting it here (and not networking) because Im open to any general tips/advice on getting into cisco line of work. :) :)
 
For the CCNA, GNS3 or packet tracer is more than sufficient and its fine for CCNP ROUTE too. CCNP SWITCH does require L3 switches which aren't featured in GNS3 unfortunately.
 
Pretty much everything above rings true, however I would actually argue that if you're serious about getting into Cisco stuff buy a router. Although GNBS3 is very good, there is a lot of stuff it doesn't do - for example, password recovery, IOS upgrades etc and much more. If you use DSL grab an 877 or a cheap 2650 with an ATM module and set it up at home. That will teach you a lot. If you want to learn switching you'll need a physical device - I found even the switching module on GNS3 for the 3800 series is very very buggy

- GP
 
Moss has it right - I've just finished CCNP ROUTE with just GNS3 - building a lab for SWITCH now, have 2 3550 and waiting on 2 2950Cs

Nate
 
Thanks for the advice, but Im really hoping to get some actual hardware. Theres just something nice about having the real equipment to play around and experiment with (well for me anyway)...
 
GNS3 does have some advantages over real hardware, an uncompressed IOS file boots in seconds on GNS3 whereas real hardware can take minutes. Plus you can save various configurations ready to re-use which might take a fair bit longer to setup with physical gear.
If you do get physical gear I'd recommend using an access-server which is basically an older router with numerous console cables, you can console into the router and then quickly switch between your other routers without having to unplug/plug console cables. I use an 2509 with a NM-16A Octal Cable.
 
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