CCNP Home Lab Questions

maartentk

Hi i'm new here and i have recently got my ccna and i'm going for ccnp (bcsi) at the moment.

I really want to set up my own home lab to get more hands on experience. I looked on ebay and there are some interesting cisco kits available. I still have a few questions though before i decide to really buy something.

My budget should be around 750$ and at the moment i own nothing of material.
I surfed the net and i came to the following lab setup:

ROUTERS

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1 x 3640 (modular, which modules do i need?)
1 x 2610 (does this has an 100mb fa port for intervlan routing?)
1 x 2522 (frame relay switch)
1 x 2511 (access server)

SWITCHES

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1 x 2950
2 x 2924/2912

- What do you think about this setup?
- Do i forget something? or do you think i can leave something out of the setup?
- For the new ccnp, is it important to have IOS 12.4 for all the routers? Are the routers that i mention 12.4 compatible?
- Are these switches IOS based?
- Which cables and accessoires do i need?
- Does this setup fit in my budget? Otherwise i can leave 2 switches out of it and buy them later if im going for bcmsn
- maybe further questions will follow

thx in advance!!

keenon

i have a rack now and looking/ in the process to convert it over to dynamips for the most part

dtlokee

As for the routers, you don't need a 2522, you can use a 2520 or 2521 for a frame switch, they have 4 serial interfaces and are far less expensive than the 2522. The 3640 is a solid router and can run 12.4, but you will need to buy all your modules and that will increase the price substantially, I would look into a 2610xm or a 2611 xm which can run 12.4 but already has 1 or 2 built in fastethernet interfaces but you will still need some serial interfaces such as a wic 1t or wic 2t. For general routers I would look at some 2500's as they can run the routing protocols required (it may require a changing the IOS for ISIS then to another one for RIPng and OSPFv3). I like the 2505,2507,2516 for this purpose, they have built in hub that eliminates the need for transceivers, or again the 2520 is a good choice but may be more expensive.

all in all you could do well with 1 2610xm or 2611xm, 3 2501 (I like the 2505/07/16/20 better for this) and a 2520 as a frame switch. For the 2600xm make sure you have atleast 32f 128d, and the 2500's should all be 16/16

That said you can do all of the routing on dynamips/dynagen if you want to and save all the cash.

For switches the 2950 is a good switch along with the 2924xl en version, be careful with the 2924
s because there's a bunch of different versions and some of them would be useless. You don't really need a L3 switch but it would be nice to have, using the 2600xm for intervlan routing would work, but you may want an additional 2600 to fake a L3 switch (that it isn't in the topology anywhere else but just to provide routing for the L2 switch)

mysql1988

I run 8 routers in dynamips on my IBM server. I sold all my routers and kept two 3550's because dynamips don't support switches yet.

geezer

Like the idea of Dynamips but how would one go about getting all that is required?

maartentk

i really have to get some real material i can practice with
i can sell it later on for the same price

thanks for the answers

Crunchyhippo

dtlokee wrote:

For switches the 2950 is a good switch along with the 2924xl en version, be careful with the 2924s because there's a bunch of different versions and some of them would be useless.

This is true. I bought two 2924s off ebay and discovered to my dismay that the IOS won't support encapsulation and it's not upgradable(!) Shoulda spent a few more bucks and gotten some 2950s.