CCNA Home Lab

Greetings,

New member here, I am studying for my CCENT/CCNA cert, and I stumbled across this forum.

I am looking to setup a home lab. I am looking for any advice or tips.

Would buying my equip from ebay peice by peice or a pre-built?

I came across this http://www.ciscokits.com/cube/ccna-router-switch-kits/cisco-ccna-3-router-3-switch-lab-kit-/prod_92.html

Would this be good? I see that there is focus on 12.4, and want to make sure I get my moneys worth.

I want to get equip and a rack to mount it with a budget of around $500 - $600 max.

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Comments

mikej412

You don't want any 1900 switches. And there are only 1 or 2 models of 2900s that are useful -- and the only one I know off hand with going to the Cisco Docs is the 2924XL Enterprise Switch. Prices on the 2950 switches have dropped to around $100 on eBay if you are patient -- and it would be great to get 2 of those, and get a cheaper 2924XL-EN for your 3rd switch.

Check out the Lab Section in the CCNA Forum FAQ for some home lab ideas. Check out the link for the routers that support SDM, and the 802.1q trunking link. Then toss in some cheap 2500s -- including a 252x for a frame relay switch and a 2509 or 2511 as a terminal server.

If you aspire already to the CCNP or higher, then do a little research and "upscale" the 2500s to 2600s (or better), if your CCNA budget permits.

JackMcBain

Hi, i'm on the same boat as cmccul002. Just starting out working forwards getting CCENT/CCNA certifited. Been looking on eBay a lot recently and have decided to go for this setup. Would be great if i can have expert opinion if this is correct. Cool, heres what i'm going with.

Not sure with the setup i'm was thinking of only going for 2 routers and 2 switch. :-S

Router
1 x 2610 (12.3 IOS)
1 x 2514

Switch
1 x 2950
1 x 2924XL

Been reading the forums and been informed there are loads of different models out there, is there any specific models i need to look out for? any suggestions would be great.

cmccul002

So what do you think of :

1 3640

2 2650's

3 2924-XL's ?

sir_creamy_

mikej412 wrote:

Then toss in some cheap 2500s -- including a 252x for a frame relay switch and a 2509 or 2511 as a terminal server.

If you aspire already to the CCNP or higher, then do a little research and "upscale" the 2500s to 2600s (or better), if your CCNA budget permits.

Since 2500s are end-of-sale, how long do you think it will be before they are no longer useful?

tiersten

If people are still using IP and ethernet of some kind then they'll be useful in various ways for a long time still. If you can afford it then upgrade them.

marlon23

Man I have 2504 in my CCIE rack as backbone router

Run quite old IOS, however has OSPFv3

1 3640 - Good also for CCIE

2 2650's - CCNA OK, CCNP OK, CCIE good as Frame-Relay switch and/or backbone router.

3 2924-XL's - I wouldn't recomend them even for CCNA, they just support 802.1D which is STP basically, and you need to play with RSTP and PVST+ a lot in CCNA. For CCNP & CCIE unusable at all.

cmccul002

Ok, well Im looking to setup some kind of lab. I have $600 to spend. I will eventually go for CCNP down the road sometime.

What would you get with $600?

cmccul002

Ok, well Im looking to setup some kind of lab. I have $600 to spend. I will eventually go for CCNP down the road sometime.

What would you get with $600?