CCNP DC Rack Rentals

KingWiiWii

Hey Guys

Where is everyone renting lab time on nexus gear ?

Just got an email from INE telling me it will 8 weeks before I can get any time with them and that I have to buy their workbook for the CCIE.

Thanks

Richie

joelsfood

I'll be lazy and just quote iristheangel's response to this question:

"As far as rack rentals, INE is limited. They don't pay for licenses so they're riding the 120 day grace period. I'd have to displeasure of starting rack rentals with them only to find out all the features are disabled because they let it go past the grace period. Other key features are missing like access to the admin VDC, FCoE VDC, etc. Getting rack time on INE is hard and the racks don't include all the technology, you have to reserve it in blocks which means it gets harder and harder to get the whole rack. IPX has a LOT more time available and more racks, not to mention that you get full access to the 7K admin VDC when using the Mock rack."

Only thing I would add is to make sure you make use of the free PEC labs if you work for a Cisco partner.

KingWiiWii

Thanks man I'll have a look.

They are expensive price starts from 500 bucks. Thats alot more then INE.

Iristheangel

I use IPExpert's rack rentals. A lot more availability. The Technology racks from proctorlabs would probably be all you need for CCNP DC level. You could also save a little money using the UCS Emulator and some of the features on VIRL but you still need to get your hands on some Nexus and MDS to pass the CCNP DC thus the rack rentals

KingWiiWii

Iristheangel wrote: »

I use IPExpert's rack rentals. A lot more availability. The Technology racks from proctorlabs would probably be all you need for CCNP DC level. You could also save a little money using the UCS Emulator and some of the features on VIRL but you still need to get your hands on some Nexus and MDS to pass the CCNP DC thus the rack rentals

whats the prices like for Proctorlabs I can see anything about cost on there ?

Iristheangel

KingWiiWii wrote: »

Thanks man I'll have a look.

They are expensive price starts from 500 bucks. Thats alot more then INE.

No, it's really not more expensive. Getting 100 tokens from INE is $100 and 500 is $500. In order to get the full stack (UCS, Nexus, FEX and SAN) from INE, it's 24 tokens/hour or 96/tokens per 4 hour period. So $100 with INE would get you 4 hours and $500 would get you about 20 hours. To purchase the equivalent Technology racks with IPX, it's $500 for 5 4-hour sessions. It's really about the same price. Plus you're not having to pay $250 to buy the workbooks prior to scheduling lab time and I can tell you that they *do* have available rack time. Attaching screenshot of schedule for this month and next. As you can see, there are a ton of open spots



Edit: These are the prices for the IPX Tech racks: https://www.ipexpert.com/Cisco/CCIE/Data-Center/Technology-Rack-Rental

E-mail jmccabe@ipexpert.com
They are usually able to help you work out a deal if you need to buy rack rentals

d4nz1g

IPexpert racks are great. Sometimes you will get a not connected port but it is extremely rare.
Pec labs are good since they are for free, but you will need your cco linked to a cisco partner.

KingWiiWii

Thanks for the responses.

I've been thinking about the order of exams and the lab work required for each.

My work will pay for the exams and have bought me a VIRL license so I'm hesitant to ask for lab time ontop.

I have read that the UCS PE can cover about 95% of the lab work required for the Unified Compute portions.

What I'm wondering is how much lab work, if any is required for the design exam for Unified Fabric ?

d4nz1g

I sat for the DCUFI exam about a month or two ago, all I can say is that you must have solid hands on experience on both Nexus and MDS platforms. If you work on a cisco partner, you can get access to PEC labs, there you will find about 90% of the technologies covered on DCUFI.

KingWiiWii

d4nz1g wrote: »

I sat for the DCUFI exam about a month or two ago, all I can say is that you must have solid hands on experience on both Nexus and MDS platforms. If you work on a cisco partner, you can get access to PEC labs, there you will find about 90% of the technologies covered on DCUFI.

even on the design exam ?

d4nz1g

I have no idea of what to expect on the DCUFD exam.
A quick read on the cert webpage and I realized that it covers some topics not even mentioned on DCUFI, including security.

KingWiiWii

Sorry for the late reply.

Thanks all for getting back to me. I managed to get access to the Gold Labs in the end.