Simulators vs Real thing

p0et

Is there much of an advantage to going out and buying all the physical equipment or will you learn the same thing with simulators? If it really will benefit me greatly to go with the real thing, I did find a bunch of equipment on ebay.. just not sure what exactly to get. I'm going for my CCNA.

Thanks!

korszo

If you have limited hands on Cisco experience ... figuring out what to buy, finding a good deal, and not getting ripped off on Ebay is great experience. You could never obtain this knowledge with a simulator. It sounds simple, but once you get into it, there are many variables on buying equipment with the least amount of cash. And depending how much effort you put into it, you can become quite familiar with the product line. I took it as a challenge to get the lab setup and not make any mistakes with the purchases.

For a while, I was spending more time searching and learning the equipment than I was studying. There's no replacement for hands on experience with real hardware.

I can actually determine if hardware is counterfeit or the real deal after my experience.

Go for the real thing ... there's no substiture.

RK

AlexMR

After meeting a couple guys with CCNPs who got there using only Simulators and who are considerd excellent pros in their companies, i think real equipment is highly overrated. I am assuming you are talking about CCNA though. They (the ccnps) say sometimes there are just certain things that dont go as they would in real eqipemnt when using sims.

One of them have a CCSP and he says for that he cant see himself studying and actually learning without equipment. The same for the CCDP. I think I am doing quite well using sims exclusively. I am using my cousins laptp and he has Cisco's packet tracer and it is great!! I didnt like the Boson simulator though.

SrAtechie

I have been fortunate enough to have both routers and switches as well as the Boson Simulator. I think where having equipment helps is if you are a visual person that needs to see something to understand it. In my personal opinion, if you're the type of person who can strictly read from a book and understand the concepts, then a simulator would more likely suffice for your type of learning. But if you're like me and need to learn visually (I've been watching the Trainsignal and CBT Nuggets CD's raw) then having physical equipment plays to your learning style by giving you something to physically connect up/walk to/move/plug/turn on and off/throw out the window in frustration.

mikej412

Simulators pretty much suck.

In the best case, using Boson for the CCNA will "be enough to get by" for the exam.

People who prefer to exceed the MINIMUM requirements will probably try and use real hardware.

Dynamips, which is an Emulator for a MIPS Processor that can execute the real IOS binary code image, is fine for BSCI in the CCNP -- but only simulates the hardware, and sucks for switching.

korszo

One must define their motive:

Pass an exam ... OR ... produce in the real world!!!

RK

nel

im studying for the ccent and would have real equipment anyday. ive used boson and packet tracer and none come close to the real thing. for what it costs for a good sim you mayswell buy the kit.

Just look at people like mikej412, look at his certs, listen to what people like that say because it is invaluable advice from a pro which help us newbies.