GNS3 lab with real equipment

2»

Comments

  • seekritseekrit Member Posts: 103
    notgoing2fail wrote: »
    So it sounds like the world of GNS3/dynagen/dynamips could be end of life in the near future? Granted so much can still be learned with current IOS's, but at some point, you're back to having to play with real equipment.

    No, far from it. It's just coming around mainstream. Cisco implemented a new policy with their support contracts eliminating the ability to download IOS versions outside of their current product licensing. Meaning if you have some 2801's you can't download 2811 IOS. Some of that is to combat the coming to age of this software. Some of the newer CCNP testing DVD's like CBT's Route even started using GNS3 in their dvd series.. Do you know anyone studying Cisco who doesn't know of GNS3 or use it?
    · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
  • tierstentiersten Member Posts: 4,505
    seekrit wrote: »
    No, far from it. It's just coming around mainstream.
    It might be getting popular but development on Dynamips itself has still stalled. The lack of support for any of the new ISRs and sups means its at a deadend in terms of IOS. The latest you can run is 15.0M and that is on the 7200 platform. The other platforms stop at 12.4T. 15.1 is not available at all for any of the platforms that Dynamips currently supports.
    seekrit wrote: »
    Cisco implemented a new policy with their support contracts eliminating the ability to download IOS versions outside of their current product licensing. Meaning if you have some 2801's you can't download 2811 IOS.
    Its restricted within that series of routers. It doesn't restricted to that specific model of router since the IOS files are generally the same. There will be restrictions on feature sets downloads for the older routers but that doesn't exist in ISR G2 and other new devices as they use a universal image.

    The changes weren't to stop Dynamips anyway. They've had big issues with suppliers and end users just buying a single SMARTnet contract on a cheap device and piggybacking everything off that since you could download anything you wanted.
    seekrit wrote: »
    Some of that is to combat the coming to age of this software.
    Dynamips only supports EOS/EOL routers and the IOS versions for those are all pretty much static now as nothing new is going to be released except 15.0M releases for the 7200.
    · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
  • seekritseekrit Member Posts: 103
    Right, thanks for the clarifications. I didn't mean insinuate their only reason for dropping the open download policy was because of emulations, or that the development is far from dead, only the mainline interest in Cisco emulation vs physical hardware.
    · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
  • tierstentiersten Member Posts: 4,505
    seekrit wrote: »
    Right, thanks for the clarifications. I didn't mean insinuate their only reason for dropping the open download policy was because of emulations, or that the development is far from dead, only the mainline interest in Cisco emulation vs physical hardware.
    Ah yes. Sorry. My bad.

    Cisco unfortunately don't seem to want to embrace the idea of training licenses or emulated hardware. The only option you have is to get a one time only trial license for the new ISR G2s and thats it. A training IOS which is feature complete but can only do 1 KPPS or extremely limited in number of connections would discourage people from using it in a production environment whilst allowing people to use it for labs without too many issues.

    Cisco do/did have their own version of an IOS simulator for internal development and testing. They've never officially released it or even admitted that it exists but there have been hints about this internal only tool that ran special IOS builds ontop of Solaris. Search for Cisco IOU (IOS On Unix) if you want to read up on it.
    · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
  • notgoing2failnotgoing2fail Member Posts: 1,138
    seekrit wrote: »
    Do you know anyone studying Cisco who doesn't know of GNS3 or use it?


    Hard to say. Personally I am new to GNS3. I love it so far. It crashed on me today but that's after been running for about 3 days straight.

    I have never used GNS3 for my studying. I'm more of a physical lab guy.

    I communicate with so many people here on the boards and other forums, I'd say it's a toss up as far as who uses GNS3 for studying, who uses real equipment at home, and who uses equipment at work for studying....
    · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Sign In or Register to comment.