Frame Relay / ISDN Question...

Kalabin

Well guy's, here is a little background on what's going on. I am enrolled at my local college for the Cisco Network Acadamy, we are being grandfathered into the last CCNA Test rather than the new one which is why I need the ISDN. The college does supply the equipment, but when it comes to configuring four router's with ISDN, tied into an Adtran phone switch we don't have enough equipment for the student's. Same issue happen's when we do lab's for Frame-Relay through the Adtran setup. So, here's the question.

Next to purchasing the equipment and setting up a home lab, have you guys had luck with Packet Tracer for configuring the CO portion of the lab's? It is also my understanding that Cisco's software does not work with ISDN Lab's. So, what's your suggestion? I am finishing up the Cisco 4 class in under a month, and then I test for my CCNA which I feel I am not ready for, simply because of the lack of hand's on experience with the equipment.

Any idea's would help. And yes, I am tempted to go out and purchase the equipment, but if there is an emulator out there I can setup the running config's on then just go in on the weekend and copy em to the equipment it would save me some coin.

Thanks in advance.

cisco_trooper

Rent a Rack maybe?

Kalabin

Well, by renting a rack are you talking about connecting remotely etc to configure? I'm clear up in Alaska, so there's no rack rental's for hand's on equipment. And if it is remote, any suggestion's on who I should look into? If the cost is going to run up about half the cost of just purchasing the equipment I may just do that.

Part of me just want's to pickup 3 2600 series routers to do the ISDN, Frame Relay, DHCP along with a 2950 Switch for setting up the VLAN's to be used via DHCP with NAT / PAT. But, I think by the time it arrived I would be 1 week out from taking the in class CCNA test.

Good times.

mikej412

If you search the CCNA forum for ISDN you should find topics that point out that the importance of ISDN (and I think IGRP) diminished long before the 640-801 was retired for non-Academy Students.

ISDN was no longer explicitly listed in the 640-801 Exam Blueprint and the ISDN topics would now just be part of any of the WAN topics. The last advice for ISDN was "just learn the trivia"

If you just want to practice some dialer configurations, you can connect 2 routers back-to-back with a rollover cable through their AUX ports -- there was a PDF Doc titled Connecting Routers Back-to-Back Through the AUX Ports on the Cisco Website.

Kalabin

Awsome, thanks for the head's up. The instructor made it seem as if ISDN was going to contain quite a few question's on the exam. I began to freak out because I have still about two chapter's of lab's to complete, and the equipment is tied up for the remainder for troubleshooting exercises.

For the purpose of just setting up a simple cost effective lab, do you beleive two 2610's with a 2924 switch would work? I understand it's 10Mbps but I wont be pushing that in a lab setting. I see lot's of people choosing different setup's for their home lab's.

-- begin rant -- Right now in our course they have pod's setup which contain two 2501's, one 2620, then a 2950 switch. Which, work's great for the vast majority of the lab's, except for when it comes to frame relay and ISDN. The class is an evening class, with multiple people like myself that have work and other issues in life that come up that prevent us from making it on time. So, in theory if every student was on the same lab's and work we could group up and finish it. However, this doesnt happen and about 50% of us are waiting on the other 50% to finish up their lab's.
-- end rant --

I did look online and saw a couple places doing the online rack rentals for basically a dollar an hour. I don't really need the hand's on cabling aspect, since I work for the telecommunication's trade with the tool's. So, im curious to see if any of you have had luck with these setup's and which company you trust to go with. I may do this for now since it's a matter of week's before I am supposed to be taking my test.

As always I do appreciate the info above!