Suggestions for CCNA/CCNP Lab

Curiosityx · 12 Oct 2006 at 11:57

Hey there, ive slacked off on the Cisco side of things these past months and had to get rid of my old kit for financial reasons.

But im looking to put together a new lab for a CCNA/CCNP spec i have a broad idea of what id like to achieve but suggestions are welcome.

Also from experience has anyone found it more beneficial to use 2600 routers rather than 2500's for there labs?

Currently i have the following in mind.

Cisco 2610 Ethernet Router with 4 port Serial card
Cisco 2503 Ethernet Router 16D/16F IP Plus 12.3
Cisco 2503 Ethernet Router 16D/16F IP Plus 12.3
Cisco 2900XL Switch running Enterprise IOS
2 x serial DB60-DB60 crossover cables

Curiosityx · 12 Oct 2006 at 14:29

I refuse to use simulators for varrying reasons

Curiosityx · 12 Oct 2006 at 15:28

Mr-White said:
i'm gonna be heading down this route soon as i'm slowly getting through my CCNA/CCNP. Whats the cost like to set one of these test labs up ?

MW

Depends on the hardware being used, the Cisco guys i work with suggest 2600's as they are faster and modular plus if you stick to the 2610 line with single 10-T connections the routers cost ~ £80 a piece with WIC Serial cards installed

Curiosityx · 12 Oct 2006 at 15:30

atomiser said:
have you thought about joining the cisco academy? i started 4 weeks ago, its great, plus the lab we have in college is pretty decent.

Id rather go through the reading material and teach myself with a little help from the guys i work with, i learn quicker and find it a lot more enjoyable.

Curiosityx · 13 Oct 2006 at 17:07

Ive bought myself what has been listed above

Cisco 2610 Ethernet Router with 4 port Serial card
Cisco 2503 Ethernet/Serial Router 16D/16F IP Plus 12.3
Cisco 2503 Ethernet/Serial Router 16D/16F IP Plus 12.3
Cisco 2900XL Switch running Enterprise IOS
2 x serial DB60-DB60 crossover cables

I want to add another two routers in the near future but ive got something to start with

Curiosityx · 15 Oct 2006 at 19:31

eXSBass said:
I was going to buy that today from there!

Guess you beat me to it

Theres 3 avaliable

V-Spec said:
Picture of my CCIE kit, all borrowed from work

http://tkfiles.storage.msn.com/x1pU...LzDvc4frh_fflaoSKWJY325DfjhtfJKGAFY9NuFNgUhSg

Consists of the following

1x 7507
1x 7206
4x 2821s
1x 3640
3x 2610s
2x 3560s
1x 3750
1x 355012G
2x 2950s
1x Pix 525 ver7
1x 1900

All this, contributes to no life, 30-40 hours of study a week, hair falling out, broken keyboards, weight loss/gain, funny eyesight... apart from that I love it

And thats just cheating!

Dist said:
what are all the routers in a cisco lab used for? i thought routers are only used to connect 2 different networks together, like WAN and LAN together, if at home you only have 1 ISP, connected to 1 of them cisco routers, what do you use the other routers for that are part of the lab? do you just connect one router to WAN and LAN switch, and the rest simply connected to the LAN switch on its own?

Routers are primarily used to connect dissimilar network topologies and allow communication between them, yes in there simplist form they can act as a gateway between a Wan and a Lan a good example would be your internet connection to your home.

But the router residing at your house simply acts as an endpoint to a much larger network.

Without routers, routing protocols and routed protocols the internet as we know it would not exist nor would many large organisational networks.

Have a look at the following to show the path a data packet travels to between two hosts, each hop is a router on the internet. Notice that the packet times out when it hits the firewall at the otherend as the protocol being used ICMP would be blocked by default.

TraceRoute to 83.245.33.202 [overclockers.co.uk]

Hop (ms) (ms) (ms) IP Address Host name

1 0 0 0 66.98.244.1 gphou-66-98-244-1.ev1.net
2 0 0 0 66.98.241.16 gphou-66-98-241-16.ev1.net
3 0 0 0 66.98.240.9 gphou-66-98-240-9.ev1.net
4 1 1 1 216.200.251.165 ge-6-0-0.mpr1.iah1.us.above.net
5 5 5 6 64.125.31.38 so-6-1-0.cr1.dfw2.us.above.net
6 5 5 6 64.125.29.190 so-1-0-0.cr2.dfw2.us.above.net
7 6 6 6 64.125.13.82 above-level3.dfw2.above.net
8 6 6 6 4.68.122.97 ae-2-54.bbr2.dallas1.level3.net
9 112 112 113 212.187.128.57 ae-1-0.bbr2.london1.level3.net
10 106 103 104 4.68.116.80 ae-12-53.car2.london1.level3.net
11 Timed out Timed out Timed out -
12 Timed out Timed out Timed out -
13 Timed out Timed out Timed out -

Also read the following.

http://www.erg.abdn.ac.uk/users/gorry/course/inet-pages/router.html

Curiosityx · 15 Oct 2006 at 22:01

pdw8 said:
I know these 2 routers intimately, I oversaw the installation and upgrade them often

Good stuff! are these based in telehouse london by any chance?

Curiosityx · 17 Oct 2006 at 01:18

pdw8 said:
No, in the london1 gateway near Aldgate.

Sounds like some very interesting work.

Curiosityx · 19 Oct 2006 at 00:58

eXSBass said:
And we get some images of the said routers Curiosity?

Lab hasnt arrived yet

Hopefully should be here in within the next two days then ill post some images

Curiosityx · 19 Oct 2006 at 21:07

Pictures! Just need a couple of ropy old pc's for hosts and were set!

http://www.pedmorecc.co.uk/img-bin/Lab.jpg

http://www.pedmorecc.co.uk/img-bin/Rack_cab.jpg

All well so far but ive run out of wall sockets...which could be a problem, i have still got a sneeky bit of space for a 3600 though