CCNP Lab Question Virtual PCs on Harware Lab

I am using physical equipment in my lab. I was wondering if anyone has any suggestion on how to simulate pc's on vlans?

To do the labs, will pings be good enough or will I need physical pc's to be members of the vlans?

Would 1 computer with multiple nics be the best route?

Would purchasing 4 small form factor pc's be the bet way to go?

These are the thing I think about in bed...

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks, E

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Comments

keenon

sandpiper wrote: »

I am using physical equipment in my lab. I was wondering if anyone has any suggestion on how to simulate pc's on vlans?

To do the labs, will pings be good enough or will I need physical pc's to be members of the vlans?

Would 1 computer with multiple nics be the best route?

Thanks, E

yes, no need in having loads of pcs serving only a couple of functions. VM it all

SysAdmin4066

Virtual with many NICs would be the way to go.

sandpiper

So one PC with many nics?

Is there a piece of software out there you would use with them?

Thanks Guys

SysAdmin4066

If you can get a machine that will supports it, I would use VMWare's ESXi. Its free, its a bare metal hypervisor and it gives very good performance. You would have to connect to your machines remotely, via like a laptop or something, but that would give you the best performance.

If you cant go that route, I would use VMWare's other free VM software, VMWare Server. It's very easy to setup, use and it's free again. It's web based, and so that makes for easy access to your VMs as well.

MS' Hyper-V Server is another bare metal option, it is also a free download now and would theoretically give the same level of performance as ESXi. I cant speak on it too much though, as I have not used it. Its pretty new.

Hope that helps?

kalebksp

I never had a reason to connect PCs to my lab for CCNP, you can ping between routers to verify connectivity.

sandpiper

that helps alot thanks

SysAdmin4066

SDM requires a Windows PC, that's ISCW.

Kris SP

Hmmm, well you can create loopback interfaces and just pretend they're going to PCs... I have not tried this but maybe those interfaces can be set to access type. give them IPs, etc, ping them, etc

billscott92787

Well if you have routers then take one of your IOS images, upload it to your PC, and download dynamips. Use it to bridge between your real equipment, and your machine, which you can create "virtual" routers. I just figured out how to bridge my virtual dynamips networks to my real equipment today and it is awesome. I have 3 routers and a switch in my real stuff, now I can run up to 6 routers or so with my slower computer on top of the real 3. 9-router network. It is awesome

SysAdmin4066

I had to do the same for ISCW and SDM labs. Worked pretty smoothly for me. I would use GNS3 though, it's easier to build topologies. I already had my hands full with the commands for CCNP, I dont need to learn anymore right now

billscott92787

SysAdmin4066 wrote: »

I had to do the same for ISCW and SDM labs. Worked pretty smoothly for me. I would use GNS3 though, it's easier to build topologies. I already had my hands full with the commands for CCNP, I dont need to learn anymore right now

I definitely know what you mean! LOL. Definitely a lot to remember!

yuriz43

SysAdmin4066 wrote: »

SDM requires a Windows PC, that's ISCW.

Actually this is not true.

I'm messing around with the SDM while working on the ISCW, and I wouldn't touch Windows with a 10 foot pole.

All you need to do is create a tap interface, connect it to your router in dynamips, setup a t.f.t.p server on your *nix box, and then copy the SDM files to your routers flash. If you don't want to have to do this every time you load your topology, make sure to select the "Save nvrams and other disk files".

Another useful tip for those using dynamips/dynagen/gns3: You can build out topologies with gns3, save them, upload them to your server and then use dynagen/dynamips exclusively. You can also setup remote dynamips servers and distribute the load amongst a bunch of boxes (if you have this type of resources.)

EDIT: Forum is broken and wont let me type t.f.t.p for some reason.!

dynamik

Yea, SDM is Java-based. I'm pretty sure I've used it on *nix machines as well.

SysAdmin4066

My bad, I meant it requires a host machine. Not necessarily Windows, but a host nonetheless. The question was whether a host machine was needed for CCNP.