How much it cost to buy CCNP lab equipment

mirror51

I am thinking of prepairing for CCNA and CCNP from my home.
I just want to know how much the setup will cost to build the home lab.


Can simulators be enough to do that

mikej412

For the cost of the Boson CCNA simulator you can build a very cheap and basic CCNA lab that should squeak you past the CCNA. For around $300(US) you can build a nice CCNA lab that you can expand into a nice CCNP lab with the addition of a couple more routers and a Layer 3 switch-- so around $800(US).

Cost and availability is a concern if you're not in the US.

Dynamips is an option. It's software that run the real Cisco IOS images. You'll either want to use the Dynagen front end to Dynamips -- or the GNS3 graphical interface. I prefer Dynagen for plain Cisco study, but have GNS3 installed since GNS3 also lets you emulate PIX/ASA firewalls and Juniper Routers.

One issue is that the Cisco software is only licensed to run on Cisco hardware -- and you need a supported IOS image to run with Dynamips. So getting an image could be an issue -- and we're an honest hard studying certification forum so no one here should even know about the seedy side of the Internet, or risk getting banned for posting about it...

The other issue is that it only runs Router IOS images and you only get a basic simulated switch to connect your emulated routers. There is a simulated switch module that you can use to gain more switching functionality -- but at that point it's just easier (and costly) to add real hardware switches.

Heck, I'll repeat that part about adding REAL Switches -- since that's a popular CCNP and CCIE home lab option. There are several ways to integrate Dynamips Routers with real routers and switches -- so most people will emulate the routers and use real switches.

Blindhog.net has some good Dynamips (and Dynagen/GNS3) videos.

The GNS3 website has all the software (except IOS images) combined into one download and has some "getting started" resources on their documentation page.