How good is Boson Sim? Which lab manual should I use?

virusc

Hi everybody. This is my first post.

I am studing for CCNA. Currenty I have current Cisco press books and lab manuals and Sybex 5th CCNA book. I plan on doing as many labs as I can, but does anyone here have a opinion on what lab software to use? I can get any of them from work but Boson ccnp 6.0 is what I have now. My fear is mainly I do not want use a simulator and memorize commands if they are not the same from real equipment as I will not be able to test the difference easily.

If I use Boson CCNP should I use their labs,cisco press, sybex labs/software?

thanks,

Paul Boz

I used the Boson software for most of the CCNA and in hindsight it's a pain in the butt because it's got tons of bugs, is based on an old version of IOS, and doesn't have many of the commands you'll want to use later on (CCNP). I suggest you use the Boson software as long as it takes you to get the base understanding of how this stuff works (Up to chapter 5 in the Sybex book) then give Dynamips a shot.

virusc

Thank you paul for your reply
. I will check out dynamips after I learn the basics.

thanks again

dredlord

I would go on ebay get some real hardware cheeper then the sim, beter in the long run and you get layer 1 practice. No sim can emulate layer one hehe

mikearama

I can't agree more, dred. Nothing like hooking up three routers and a couple switches for experience, and a sense of accomplishment.

Having said that, I also spent the money on the boson ccna netsim (v6.0), for use during slow times at work, and I think it's just awesome.

Let's be candid here... the ccna exam doesn't (yet) ask you to setup physical hardware, merely to configure hypothetical equipment. The sim does exactly that. If your end-goal is to chase the CCIE, then my goodness, get real equipment... you'll need it.

Mike

dredlord

yes you are right regarding the sim, thow one should also keep in mind that if you get a job in networking youll be using the real stuff.

kafifi13

if you can afford it go with the equipment. I did a sim for a while which was cool. Got bored and bought a bunch of equipment. Great hands on experiance.

Netstudent

Not trying to change the subject, but are yall playing musical avatars or what??

kafifi13

dredlord took my Homer Simpson one so i was getting confused. figured i'd change it up a bit.

Noe84

Yep, I use Boson netSim for CCNA, ran into some bugs with configuring OSPF. Couldn't figure out what was going on. I also use CCNA network visualizer 5.0 which was part of the Sybex CCNA study guide ed. 5.

cisco_trooper

I also had bugs with OSPF. Drove myself nuts trying to figure out why routes weren't working. After this I decided to go with real equipment.

virusc

I found some more bugs so I bought some equipment. It is much more fun to use real equipment and at least I can trust the command outputs.

2501
2504
2520
2524
all 16/16.

also
1924, 2924 switches

Which IOS rev should I use for the routers? Specific with rev of 12.3 or 12.2?

The boson software is still great for when I am not at home.

totts

I've go Boson Netsim but rarely use it. I've never got as far as discovering bugs because I lose my patience with it. Its just not very user friendly. Be great if they tidied it up a bit and got rid of the bugs too.