Show Us Your Racks

May as well ask this here than make a new thread.

I'm building a lab for the CCNA/CCNP and possibly some gear from other manufacturers.

What racks would you guys recommend for a home lab? I'm going to be using a single
2950, a couple of 3550's, a couple of 3560's and then either GNS3 or some real
Cisco routers.

I'm trying to keep costs low but also buy something decent. Either a 12U, and then
buy another if I ever need to, or just buy a bigger rack to begin with which will
definitely be enough.

Thoughts on this? Would prefer to buy something enclosed so that my cats won't wreck it. :D
 
bigredshark said:
If you have a CCIE and any sense you'll actually touch cabling personally about once a year. Nobody pays £150k for patching stuff, they pay it for designing the network, so you don't waste that kind of experience doing the physical build out, certainly not on access switching.
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In a work environment I can understand, but it was his home lab that had messy cabling. Although I understand his explanation of why it is like that, it would just drive me nuts and I would be compelled to sort it out.
 
kalvindeane said:
May as well ask this here than make a new thread.

I'm building a lab for the CCNA/CCNP and possibly some gear from other manufacturers.

What racks would you guys recommend for a home lab? I'm going to be using a single
2950, a couple of 3550's, a couple of 3560's and then either GNS3 or some real
Cisco routers.

I'm trying to keep costs low but also buy something decent. Either a 12U, and then
buy another if I ever need to, or just buy a bigger rack to begin with which will
definitely be enough.

Thoughts on this? Would prefer to buy something enclosed so that my cats won't wreck it. :D
Click to expand...



If you want to keep costs low, then don't buy anything. GNS3 is ample for CCNA and most of CCNP.
 
I have a Skeletek Rack.

LINK

Excellent for a lab environment. Of course, as above you should be able to GNS3 most of it but the switching ability is limited (You can only simulate it using the 16 port switching module in one of the routers) and is a little buggy. If you still want to buy some hardware go for it, but I wouldn't spend a lot

- GP
 
Ghostly, where did you get your rack from? Can only see American retailers and 1 Austrian one selling them, obviously postage will cost a lot (American postage is like £150 :p)

I still am struggling though to find the Cisco 1760 router mounting kits though, useless buying a rack if I can't get these.

----
Had a nice little trip around Cisco Readings labs on Friday, went into 2 rooms with about 300-400 racks in each. One had all open racks so not exactly very nice to look at, the other was a customer testing lab or something so were closed with air vent type things above them. Lots of expensive equipment :p
 
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kalvindeane said:
May as well ask this here than make a new thread.

I'm building a lab for the CCNA/CCNP and possibly some gear from other manufacturers.

What racks would you guys recommend for a home lab? I'm going to be using a single
2950, a couple of 3550's, a couple of 3560's and then either GNS3 or some real
Cisco routers.

I'm trying to keep costs low but also buy something decent. Either a 12U, and then
buy another if I ever need to, or just buy a bigger rack to begin with which will
definitely be enough.

Thoughts on this? Would prefer to buy something enclosed so that my cats won't wreck it. :D
Click to expand...

Costs low =! a 12U rack

Get an Ikea Lack or make one like me
 
oli356 said:
Ghostly, where did you get your rack from? Can only see American retailers and 1 Austrian one selling them, obviously postage will cost a lot (American postage is like £150 :p)
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It was about 2 years or more ago now.... I THOUGHT I got it from dantraknet with about £12 shipping but looking at the site I'm not so sure now

- GP
 
Well, just suffered a power cut last night which took out one side of the ancient Apple RAID array that i posted here. Powered down and back up again and the RAID just sorted itself out with a fantastic pretty light show and it's back running still.

This thing is 7 years old and is bullet proof <3 much love for it.
 
Came across this earlier: http://wiki.eth-0.nl/index.php/LackRack

I have two of these tables at home, one of which lives next to my server for the printer to live on and to hide the surge protector and all of it's ugly cables already. :D

Buy this: http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/40104270/#/20011408

End up with this!

Norco-3216-LackRack.jpg
 
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Muel said:
Came across this earlier: http://wiki.eth-0.nl/index.php/LackRack

I have two of these tables at home, one of which lives next to my server for the printer to live on and to hide the surge protector and all of it's ugly cables already. :D
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I just bought one. I'll use it for my CCNA lab that is currently taking up space in my cupboard. Will be able to mount the three switches I have in it but not the 1800 series routers I've got, but then again it's a table so I'll just put them on top. :D
 
I'm making plans for mine. First stop, mounting a power pack thing in the back and a managed gigabit switch in the front.

I have no idea what switch to buy though or how much they cost. I just want one of the cool looking ones with loads of cables and stuff.
 
GhostlyPea said:
It was about 2 years or more ago now.... I THOUGHT I got it from dantraknet with about £12 shipping but looking at the site I'm not so sure now

- GP
Click to expand...
Thanks, trying to get my order in with their Austrian store, 25 euros for postage isn't bad. The rack on the other hand isn't so cheap but oh well :p I ended up getting my lab for pretty much nothing so I have some money to spare :)
 
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Thanks guys. :) Think I'll avoid a rack until I really need it, and then ask my father if he'll knock something up for me to save money. Could buy a l3 switch for my lab for the cost of a decent enclosed rack. :D
 
MilanoChris said:
You know that you can easily achieve CCNA with GNS3 and no actual lab kit?

I appreciate it's nice to have hands on the kit in order to practice DR, IOS upluifts and what not, but there really isn't a lot you cannot achieve on GNS3, especially if it's for CCNA.

Just my 2p.

Here is a screenshot of some of the stuff me and my friends are doing:

http://i.imgur.com/FkGro.jpg[/IM][/QUOTE]

Are you following a plan or just making it up as you go along? I've toyed with the idea of making a massive GNS3 lab featuring several different technologies all linked up with BGP. :)
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My lab currently consists of:

1 x Cisco 3550 L3
1 x Cisco 3750 L3
1 x Cisco 2950T
1 x Cisco 2611XM
1 x Cisco Aironet 1142N
1 x Cisco Aironet 1141N
1 x Cisco Aironet 1242AG
1 x Cisco Aironet 1310 (RPTNC Outdoor unit)
1 x HP DL360 G5 (2 x 2.5GHz Quad Cores, 8GB RAM etc) running VMWARE
1 x Overclockers custom PC (AMD Quad Core 3.2GHz, 8GB RAM, running XenServer 6 and 7 VM's, I need more RAM tbh)
2 x Juniper SSG20's with extended license in active / active cluster

I have too much rubbish tbh; especially Aironet's.
 
@Matt Finch.

Just looking over the pictures again, yours in particular. Are you running Cisco's SRP541 router as your primary? I'm thinking about replacing my home hub 3 with one of these for my main internet connection as well as to give me a little bit of hands on managed configuring.
 
Hey guys, I got my Ikea table yesterday (lol) I was in the middle of recabling and I remembered this thread existed! So I snapped a photo. Not bad for £4, assuming all my gear won't fall out at some point :)

http://imgur.com/5eBd1
 
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