Detailed questions about lab for ccna/ccnp

Greenmet29

I am thinking about going for my CCNP after I finish my CCNA, and maybe one or two of the advanced CCNA tracks.

I have a gbic port for a 2950 switch that I have and i'm not sure if i'll ever actually need it. Is there anything i'll ever NEED a gbic port for that the 10/100 port won't do in a lab environment?

Also, i've been thinking about getting a layer 3 switch. I have 2 2950 switches, and am in the market for another switch in order to do spanning tree and vlan labs. I've thought about going with another 2950 switch, but because i'm thinking about eventually moving on to CCNP, would it be good to go ahead and spring for the L3 switch now? If so, do you have any suggestions on what one I should look at?

Thanks!

seekrit

Greenmet29 wrote: »

I am thinking about going for my CCNP after I finish my CCNA, and maybe one or two of the advanced CCNA tracks.

I have a gbic port for a 2950 switch that I have and i'm not sure if i'll ever actually need it. Is there anything i'll ever NEED a gbic port for that the 10/100 port won't do in a lab environment?

for my CCNA I used 2 x 2950g's and a single 3550-smi with a sc-sc multimode fiber cable running between one of the 2950g and the 3550. It's nice to switch it up a little for spanning-tree root-port elections and looking at different path costs. But you certainly don't "need" it

Greenmet29 wrote: »

Also, i've been thinking about getting a layer 3 switch. I have 2 2950 switches, and am in the market for another switch in order to do spanning tree and vlan labs. I've thought about going with another 2950 switch, but because i'm thinking about eventually moving on to CCNP, would it be good to go ahead and spring for the L3 switch now? If so, do you have any suggestions on what one I should look at?

Thanks!

Get the 3550 now, and if you can get the PoE. They're about the same price and come in real handy for your voice and wireless when you're hooking up phones and AP's.

VAHokie56

I don't really see why you would need to use fiber in a lab aside from the fact that you getting hands on experience. I just looked on ebay there is a 24 port 3550 for like 50 beans. If you are thinking of building your lab around possible CCNP studies, you should look at Cisco's web site. They have released what the t-shoot exam topology will be , so build it with that in mind, that's what I am doing. So far I got...

5 2600's
2 3550's (using these for L2)
2 3750's (using these for L3)
might try and use a 4948 to do the frame-relay

seekrit

There is no point to have fiber, I used it becasue my switches both came with GBIC cards and the 3 meter sc-sc cables are a wopping $7. Give TSHOOT Bull's eye Strategy a Google search. The 3 video's will go over the entire TSHOOT topology and device list..

tiersten

VAHokie56 wrote: »

might try and use a 4948 to do the frame-relay

4948? Thats a Cat switch and a current model at that...

VAHokie56

tiersten wrote: »

4948? Thats a Cat switch and a current model at that...

These are not mine to own...most of them anyways. I can just use them until if ever they are needed for production.

tiersten

VAHokie56 wrote: »

These are not mine to own...most of them anyways. I can just use them until if ever they are needed for production.

Its an Ethernet switch though. You need serial interfaces to do frame relay which the 4948 doesn't have.

VAHokie56

err your right not sure where my train of thought was going with that.