ICND2 with a lab

Hi

i passed my ICND1 with 970/1000 purely by reading books and understanding the concepts, would i be able to do the same with ICND2?
do i really need a lab? i only have and 800 series which support most of the basic command (apart from dot1q), would that be enough?.

any advice will be helpful

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Comments

mamono

It is recommend that you have at least two routers and one switch. For the router, you want one that supports at least 12.4. With the switch, you want a 2950. All of this, you can get for about $100-$200 total including cables. Just do the research and shop around on ebay. A good router to use is 2620xm and any 2950 switch, standard or enchanced image is fine.

mfieldhouse

I recently heard a story about a guy who passed CCNP through reading the study guides only. I'm not sure how much on-the-job experience he'd already got but I guess it's possible.

tiersten

mfieldhouse wrote: »

I recently heard a story about a guy who passed CCNP through reading the study guides only. I'm not sure how much on-the-job experience he'd already got but I guess it's possible.

I expect that they have equipment available at work. They've passed CCNA at some point as well so they're not totally new to Cisco gear.

networker050184

Sure its possible to pass with out a lab, but would you really gain much with out hands on practice? You could memorize enough to pass, but it would probably be forgotten fairly quickly with out the hands on to help it sink in. If you are only after a certification and not actually mastering the topics then you will be fine without a lab....

mfieldhouse

Of course. I get to the end of a topic in BSCI (the exam I'm currently studying for) and even after answering all the questions and doing all the labs in Dynamips I'm still after more knowledge from the Cisco website. From the way I see it, a certification gives you a way to "get your foot in the door" for a new job and especially at CCNP level you need to know what you're doing once you're in that job which involves going above and beyond reading the cert guides cover to cover.