VIRL for CCNP

Is VIRL sufficient by itself for learning CCNP? The academic pricing of $80 for 20 nodes is attractive.

I'm concerned about Cisco learning for the future with real equipment, given than IOS 15.x requires license keys that could get very expensive, depending on feature sets needed.

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Comments

fredrikjj

Should be fine. The only possible problem would be some layer 2 switching features that aren't available in the switch image. If that becomes an issue you can just rent some rack time on real switches.

theodoxa

VIRL should work fine for Layer 3 at least. The IOS-XE software bundled with it (CSR-1000V) is what is used in most CCIE labs for Layer 3.

OctalDump

It's fine for CCNP ROUTE. It doesn't have all the features you need for SWITCH, though. CEF and other ASIC dependent features can't really be done properly in a virtual environment (well, not until they put the ASICs on to PCIe cards or something).

It's the routers that tend to be pricey, since most of the current routers that support IOS 15.2+ have the newer licensing model. You only need the base feature set for ROUTE. But it's the routers that VIRL does well, so this is where you save lots of money.

So, get some cheap L3 ios 15 Switches (3560, 3750) and the academic VIRL, and you should be fine.