CCSP Lab suggestions

dredlord

Good morning everyone. After some time away from these forums I am finally back on track with Cisco time to head up the CCSP route. I am currently building my home lab and would appreciate some suggestions for CCSP (Also where can I buy good lab books?)

I currently have

- A fully licenced ASA 5505 (Access to cisco.com downloads)
- Cisco 1841 router 12.4T Advanced Enterprise Services IOS
- Cisco 2950 switch
- 2 small servers to host any applications / services for the lab
- GNS3

I plan to continue on to CCIE:Sec

mikej412

Check out Lab Equipment and Software v3.0 - CCIE SECURITY TRACK - Cisco Systems

You'll need an "IPS Solution" -- either an IPS or a virtual machine version.

I'd have to go through the current CCSP exam blueprints to figure out if you'd need the layer 3 switch now (or if it would just be nice to have now). I'd guess it would be nice to have, but you could probably survive the CCSP without it.

The "virtual option" has turned the CCIE Security from one of the more expensive home labs into one of the easiest to emulate (if you have a nice sized powerful PC or multiple PCs to use).

dredlord

I have a very strong PC, can handle 6 VMs at a go so I think the reasonable way is to go with emulation, your talking about dynamips or some other new tool I dont know about (was away from Cisco scene for a while - Microsoft hehe)

mikej412

PEMU lets you emulate PIX firewalls -- I've got that running on a Linux server. GNS3 is the memory hog graphical interface for Dynamips -- but it also support PEMU -- which almost makes it worth loading GNS3.

spencega

IPS on VMWare

7200emu.hacki.at :: View topic - running IPSv5 on VMWare

dredlord

Interesting thanks for the share

shednik

mikej412 wrote: »

PEMU lets you emulate PIX firewalls -- I've got that running on a Linux server. GNS3 is the memory hog graphical interface for Dynamips -- but it also support PEMU -- which almost makes it worth loading GNS3.

Its not too bad if you run it on linux though....I had about 10 routers and 2 PIX running.

apd123

shednik wrote: »

Its not too bad if you run it on linux though....I had about 10 routers and 2 PIX running.

What were the specs of the machine this was on?

dredlord

After some reaserch I decided to go with the physical rather then emulated for most of the lab (IPS not included as I have yet to find a reasonable box) I have decided on a lab setup as follows for CCNP / CCSP {based on a post by Shaun on wendel odlums blog}

2x 2950T
2x 3550
4x 3640
2x 2621
2x 877w
1x 2511
4x 2520

Then including the gear I allready have
ASA 5505 (x2), 1841 Ent IOS

Should this build be adaquate, I have decided to do the CCNP first then move to SP as I have read numerous accounts that CCIE:S asumes certain level of routing knowledge, {makes sense one must understand the way data flows on the network before one can secure them}