Ultimate CCIE Rack under $10k?

If you had up to $10k to spend on a rack for home study what would you buy? I'm a CCNP and I want to stay with my security emphasis. Now I'm looking into CCIE but I'm not sure what kind of rack I would need to thouroughly simulate the material.

Goals: Simulate all the technologies of the tests; Keep a security emphasis.

I'm a neophyte to the CCIE track so any help would be ... well, helpful!

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Comments

wildfire

Hellz are those the USB Ethernet drives? how many of those before you max out?

HELLZxPHADER

Dont get the usb nic, instead look for quad nic pci card- or if it exists get a switch you can connect to your pc by usb.

Best way to do with one pc....

core 2 duo
motherboard with 3 pci
2 gigs ram
3 quad nic pci cards

wildfire

with Ref to Dynamips whichs NICs are you using? I bought some Adapted 6944A/TX (quad nic) to run my setup, however in windows I can only get one port to start in windows, the others have a windows code 10 error, I think its a driver issue, as the 3 that dont work, with the compatible button ticked the real driver doesnt show up.

if I boot into backtraq (linux distro) its sees all 4, but I have no idea how to setup dynagen/mips in linux and I like using secureCRT etc in Windows, so I am worried now will I need to load my PC's into Linux which means my RAID doesn not work or do you know of another quad nic?

mikej412

wildfire wrote:

with Ref to Dynamips whichs NICs are you using?

Shhhhhhhhhh.... don't tell anyone, but I tested the PIX-4FE (33mhz).

The Win2000 server saw all 4 ports.... before I remembered Dynagen only likes XP and
Linux. Good thing I remembered that!

But since I had an XP machine open (and Dynamips/Dynagen already loaded) I decided to
give it a shot there.

The PIX-4FE network cards worked under Windows XP... and with Dynagen/Dynamips
(and WinPcap) and talked on the network.

I still haven't tried the PIX-4FE in a Linux server yet.... but it is nice knowing I have the XP
fallback option.

I just bought 4 more PIX-4FEs before everyone else finds out they work and drives up the
prices on eBay.

HELLZxPHADER

sorry all no more ftp lol

hey guys, i just recieved my quads they work, they are freekin long though like 14 inch lol.

HELLZxPHADER

hey mike try running a full mesh external bgp setup on all routers with no filtering, that will put the core 2 duo to the test. Man i need one, im currently using 3 pcs to load balance utilization =(

HELLZxPHADER

woohoo ftp up again, probably not for long though.....
screen of utilization at start with all devices now! BB2 is a real router that will not show up on cdp no clue why.

http://home.comcast.net/~noshut/quad.gif

the utilization on .66 is really lower, forgot i had 3 torrents running. bah back to the labcave!

HELLZxPHADER

hi again

My rack keeping my garage room warm lol

http://home.comcast.net/~noshut/labcave.jpg

Its a happy family now!

HELLZxPHADER

http://home.comcast.net/~noshut/zz.jpg

sorry for the spammage its only a once in a while type thing! I get to put the isps ftp to use too!

HELLZxPHADER

mikej412 wrote:

wildfire wrote:

with Ref to Dynamips whichs NICs are you using?

Shhhhhhhhhh.... don't tell anyone, but I tested the PIX-4FE (33mhz).

The Win2000 server saw all 4 ports.... before I remembered Dynagen only likes XP and
Linux. Good thing I remembered that!

But since I had an XP machine open (and Dynamips/Dynagen already loaded) I decided to
give it a shot there.

The PIX-4FE network cards worked under Windows XP... and with Dynagen/Dynamips

im running small business server 2003 r2 so far i like it the best, second would be 2003 enterprise r2 then xp.

I was curious about the pix pci too, now i gotta get one! Mike has so much stuffz!!!!!!

Hey mike and to whoever else that has exp with cisco phones,.... aside from the 7960 which phones should i get if im trying to limit budget? Whats the lowest model number that will work for lab?

wildfire

Mike you werent kidding about driving the prices up the are throug the roof!!! anyway Ive ordered a LNYX 4 port card now to see that will work.

mikej412

HELLZxPHADER wrote:

Hey mike and to whoever else that has exp with cisco phones,.... aside from the 7960 which phones should i get if im trying to limit budget? Whats the lowest model number that will work for lab?

I've seen someone say get 5 or 6 7960s..... but I've got 2 (I think)... and 2 or 3 7940s.... and a couple 7910s.... or are they 7912s.... or 7905s?

It's nice have a couple of the older ones just to make calls from... but for the CCVP I never really needed more than 3 at one time (that I remember).

wildfire

Ok just when I was on the verge of scrapping the whole project I found a ZNYX Quad card for $20 on ebay, which works fine in 2K3 so Im back on track!

Stay away from the Adaptec 6944 series they dont work in any windows except NT!

I am a little worried on my FX-53 chip with 2gb of DRAM as soon as I fire up the BB's from internetwork expert topology, it grinds to a halt,

my plan is BB2 and 3 will be real 3640 and 2611XM, BB1 on a P4 2.4 1GB DRAM laptop. R5 and R6 on my FX-53 and R1-4 on a new Core 2 Duo E4600 2Gig DRAM. And connect to my real switches.

I got 3 Layer 3s (a 3550, 3560 and a 3750) and a 2950, so I just need a another 35x0 for the future, I also tried setting up my terminal server to access Dynamips remotly which worked like a dream to, so I plan to get this up and running to replace my clunkety old online rack.

HELLZxPHADER

when you first execute the .net file, while its loading, login to each router from your term server, this reduces the load process on the cpu(s).

Another thing... say when you are midway through a lab, and you save your cfgs and try to load up that lab again, most likly you will not be able to because it requires so much from your cpu on top of the normal load up. But if you are running multiple core 2 duos or something it might work.

With your 3 computers it is safe to run......
2 128 ios on the pentium 4
3 128 on the fx
and 5-7 on the core 2 duo.

Im currently running...

r1, r2 from a 2.6 celeron with 1g
r3 from a amd 1.6 with 256
r4, r5, r6 and the frs from a x2 amd 2g

it seems to be the best way to balance out load with what i got, so i decided not to get a new pc and just work with it till something comes up. So far its holding up, ive left nearly completed labs running while sleep and still holds till morning.

HELLZxPHADER

if anyone has questions about dyna just ask, my msn is in my profile and i'm usually online.