Storage + and CCNA: DC overlap

Deathmage

Hey guys,

So I'm just revving down now for Storage + and I was looking at CCNA: DC and the information looks strikingly similair, is DC relatively easy for Datacenter engineers?

The material just seems like allot of overlap of other certifications I hold...

I'm curious if my home-lab having 3750G's are good for R&S at the distro/access layers but since I got a VMware lab if I should acquire a DC grade switches. Do they make a decent DC switches you can find on ebay?

Like what kind of beneficial things can a Cisco fabric provide a VMware datacenter if it rode on that fabric?

Seems I maybe adding CCNA: DC to my to-do-list...

OctalDump

If by DC switch you mean 10gbe converged, then they aren't cheap, even 2nd hand. I think the cheapest I saw was $600+, and more normally 1k+.

There are options, Fibre Channel gear is a bit cheaper since the boom in 10GBe. Also, although it won't help much with Cisco, is you can use virtual SAN or roll your own storage array using CNAs and Linux. CNAs vary in cost also, I've seen occasionally under $100, but generally in the $200 range, 2nd hand of course.

I've not looked at the DC objectives, so not sure if it goes heavy in FCoE - which basically requires converged switches and CBAs. If it's just iSCSI and some general FC stuff, then getting gear should be possible without spending $1000s.

I remember reading something recently about the CCIE DC lab cost, and it was north of $1million. Which makes me think the DC track might be more expensive generally.