Virtual Labs for CCNP

egrizzly

What are some good virtual labs that you experienced Cisco guys can recommend? How close are these labs to the real thing (that. using actual Cisco equipment). thanks in advance for your input.

koz24

VIRL--$200 for 20 nodes or $300 for 30 nodes
GNS3/Dynamips--free but you need the IOS images
GNS3/IOU--free but you need the IOU images
Unetlab--free but you need the IOU images

Not all switch features are supported. You can always connect real switches to GNS3.

kohr-ah

I am a heavy virtual learner.

Switches is where you lose the most. Private vlans don't work. Ether channel is more stable now but not totally. Routers crash for no reason.

Honestly for routers a csv1000 is stable as can be and hook to 2 real switches. Catch is you need an ESX box with a LOT of ram to run at least 10 routers at 3 GB a piece

koz24

I've never had an IOU router crash on me, ever. Perhaps you used an unstable"nightly build" IOU image? The CCIE lab is all IOU so the trick is just using the right images in your labs. I agree with you on the switching. I invested about $450 into 4x 3560e and I couldn't be happier.

kohr-ah

I've had the router (15.2.4t I think was the iou image) lock up and out when doing large scale dmvpn networks for me. It doesn't happen often but when it does I've hoped I've done write mem recently.

I've never had a 7200 lock up however.

aprendo

koz24 wrote: »

I've never had an IOU router crash on me, ever. Perhaps you used an unstable"nightly build" IOU image? The CCIE lab is all IOU so the trick is just using the right images in your labs. I agree with you on the switching. I invested about $450 into 4x 3560e and I couldn't be happier.

Hello,

I already have the 4x3560 switches, Im planning to buy a server with at least 64gb RAM to run the routing part.
For the IOU routers, do you use it with Unetlab (former Web-iou) or with GNS3? do you have any link of how to configure the setup virtual-physical connection?

Many thanks

DevilWAH

I am looking at gettign a few CISCO compact switches, there is the 2960c or 3650C (layer2/3)

3560C range

they are only 8 - 12 ports each but they are passively cooled and only about £400 new (can get them much cheaper 2nd hand), I use them at work quite a lot as we have lots of small buildings where they work well.

nice thing is you can put them on your desk as they run silent, patch them in to GNS3 and you have a full on lab on your desk, no running back and forth to a rack to re-patch all the time. The also run the latest IOS versions so your not missing out on features so much.

Two of these and a PC running GNS3 and you all set.

DevilWAH

Just an example of one from ebay (please remove is against forum rules, this was just to show the kind of cost you can pick up SH one for)

aprendo

DevilWAH wrote: »

I am looking at gettign a few CISCO compact switches, there is the 2960c or 3650C (layer2/3)

3560C range

they are only 8 - 12 ports each but they are passively cooled and only about £400 new (can get them much cheaper 2nd hand), I use them at work quite a lot as we have lots of small buildings where they work well.

nice thing is you can put them on your desk as they run silent, patch them in to GNS3 and you have a full on lab on your desk, no running back and forth to a rack to re-patch all the time. The also run the latest IOS versions so your not missing out on features so much.

Two of these and a PC running GNS3 and you all set.

Nice little machines, maybe a bit expensive, I got my 4 c3560-24ts on ebay for around 55 pounds each.

DevilWAH

Yep I had a few of them (3560's), an was lucky to have some 3750's to. But so noisy had to have them in a different room which meant every time I wanted to change topology it was walking back and forth.

what I like is not my Lab is on my desk at home, Computer Nic's all sport vlan tagging so put laptop down, fire up GNS3 and ready to go. and there small enough that if I am studying by have to be away from home at a conference or any thing I can pack them up and take them with me (wife has banned them from holidays )

Simrid

I'm very impressed with unetlab at the moment. Definately a huge competitor for GNS3 and one to watch out for.