Cisco lab question

is £300 a good price for all this equipment? can i set up a lab that would allow me to practice and achieve CCNA/CCNP certs?

1 x Switch Cisco 4000
7 x Cisco 2600:
5 x WIC1T
1 x WIC 1B S/T
1 x WIC 2T
3 x serial 4A/S
1 x BRI 8B-S/T
3 x Cisco 2500
3 x AUI
2 x Serial
+ Hundreds of cables and adaptors
+ Good Cabinet to store the equipmen

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Comments

Panzer919

Honestly, if you have a good PC, just download and use GNS3. You have to You can spend your money on a couple decent switches (2950/3550) and be good to go.

vinbuck

+1 on GNS3

GNS3 is not only free, it is also a time saver. You can have complex networks up and ready for config in minutes rather than hours. If you deploy it on a laptop, you can lab wherever you go. You can save the startup configs so that if you want to bring a network back on line for a refresher or to drill down on a topic, then you can access it instantly. The only major drawbacks are limited L2 switching. Realistically, GNS3 has enough L2 capability to get you through the CCNA and well into the CCNP. You will need real L2 switches at some point, but for right now you should be good.

j-man

What are the specs on your lappy? I've had very limited success running GSN3 on my laptop. Even two 2610XM while stable, it will peg the CPU at 100% but I get no crashes. Add one more, it gets more unstable and will crash frequently when doing simple commands.

It's a great product but I can't seem to get it to work well (even after hitting their forums and internet) for larger topologies.

bermovick

Not sure what happened to my previous reply, so ......

You've got to adjust the IDLE PC value in GNS3 (each router class needs it set individually) to stop the 100% CPU issue. Once you've found a good idle value, any decentish system should keep you under 10% for a few routers.

j-man

I've tried that. Despite saying an Idle PC has been calculated there is nothing better ( denoted by an * )

This isn't something that should be discussed here. My system is having some issues.

GSN3 worked well enough for me to practice some things when away from my routers.

alan2308

Does every thread really need to be hijacked by the GNS3 peanut gallery?

Based on what an online currency converter tells me, that price seems fair for what is included, but the going rate for gear on your side of the pond may differ so I can't say for sure. The problem is that the bundle includes a lot of gear that you won't have any use for, and you'll need at least one more switch. It's also hard to say how useful any of the routers are without knowing how much memory and flash that they have. And it's not always as easy as taking all of the memory out of one router to double what is in another one.

This is why we generally recommend staying away from the bundles and piecing together your own lab. You get everything that you need, you don't end up paying for a bunch of stuff you can't use, and you learn a lot in the process.

dgriffith

I didn't have many * values for my GNS3 setups either, but I selected and reselected until one finally dropped between 00 and 06. More than often, I don't see the * values.

I don't mind the advice in favor of the sim/emulators. I don't have the money to buy the real equipment yet, so I am also having to use dynamips/gns3 for now until I can afford to build a lab. It can interface with real equipment, so I can buy my lab piecemeal and still setup more complex topologies. It is also useful when I have to practice at work, as I have it all running from a USB stick for when I can't access the internet.

Panzer919

alan2308 wrote: »

Does every thread really need to be hijacked by the GNS3 peanut gallery?

Just because I promote GNS3 does not mean I am anti hardware. I have a 20U rack at my house with 4x2650XM's and a 3550. I just see the cost benefit of using GNS3 when you can. I have it for ASA and Routers, I use my lab equipment for voice since I can use the different Mods. I just don't think you can justify the cost of real equipment for the CCNA and most of the CCNP because you get better results from GNS3. Meaning I can design a Lab at work and go home, boot it up and immediately start working. I don't have to make or buy cables, no rewiring, and I can create a broken lab and send it to my friend to troubleshoot. Plus money saved by using GNS3 can go to books or CBT Nuggets

alan2308

Panzer919 wrote: »

Just because I promote GNS3 does not mean I am anti hardware. I have a 20U rack at my house with 4x2650XM's and a 3550. I just see the cost benefit of using GNS3 when you can. I have it for ASA and Routers, I use my lab equipment for voice since I can use the different Mods. I just don't think you can justify the cost of real equipment for the CCNA and most of the CCNP because you get better results from GNS3. Meaning I can design a Lab at work and go home, boot it up and immediately start working. I don't have to make or buy cables, no rewiring, and I can create a broken lab and send it to my friend to troubleshoot. Plus money saved by using GNS3 can go to books or CBT Nuggets

My comment was more towards the growing trend of threads that end up being 20 posts about GNS3 and not a single post answering the actual question. Make a thread for that, don't hijack every other thread on the forum. Look at this thread, this is post #10 and one single post actually addressed the OP's question.

I've got nothing against GNS3 myself, I use it quite a bit when I want to lab up something quickly. But for someone new to Cisco, it still doesn't solve the "I've never touched a router" problem. You can't xmodem an IOS, perform a password recovery procedure, troubleshoot layer 1 issues, actually implement your home network, etc. Real hands on is still important. You'll get more out of two 2500's and two 2900XL's than you will out of a second book. And making cables and rewiring equipment is part of the learning process. Remember, this is the CCENT/CCNA section, not everyone here has years of experience on real gear under their belt.

Futura

My 2p,

I would personally pick up kit 1 bit at a time and learn all about it.

I started with 1 3550 switch, then got two 1760's, realised I need 2 wic 1t's to go in them, then realised I needed a cable. then I got two more Switches, then I needed GBIC's, Then I needed Fibre, By the time you have learned about one bit of kit you can buy the next.

Like buying 10 xbox games at once, you only play 1 at once, so its best to buy 1 and play that one first

I have learned 10x more stuff breaking this equipment and fixing it, Connecting it then unconnecting it, erased this kit about 25 times now and each time I learn something new. I learn more when It does'nt work than when it does.

I got two 2600's for free and found out they are worthless cause Noah used them in his Ark. I gave them back.

Thats my opinion

Hope it helps

Panzer919

alan2308 wrote: »

But for someone new to Cisco, it still doesn't solve the "I've never touched a router" problem. making cables and rewiring equipment is part of the learning process. Remember, this is the CCENT/CCNA section, not everyone here has years of experience on real gear under their belt.

True, I guess I didn't look at it in that way. I just hate to see people overspend on something that they could purchase later as an add-on.

alan2308

Futura wrote: »

I got two 2600's for free and found out they are worthless cause Noah used them in his Ark. I gave them back.

That's not exactly true. The 2600's are still perfectly suitable for CCNA work. The only thing on the CCENT/CCNA exam topics that they cannot do is SDM. My 1600's. 2500's, and 2600's served me quite well through the CCNA, and there's still plenty that I can do with them now that my focus has moved towards CCNA Security.

Futura

alan2308 wrote: »

That's not exactly true. The 2600's are still perfectly suitable for CCNA work. The only thing on the CCENT/CCNA exam topics that they cannot do is SDM. My 1600's. 2500's, and 2600's served me quite well through the CCNA, and there's still plenty that I can do with them now that my focus has moved towards CCNA Security.

what I meant to say was that they were the lowest spec ones with the oldest IOS and had no way of updating the IOS to a newer version.

Somebody told me on this board that they needed a lot of work doing to them.

Panzer919

2600's are good routers. If you get the XM models you can even use them for voice (after you get the IOS and appropriate modules)

Michael2

Are those videos really helpful? Did you use them? I'm planning to go for my CCNA, but I really don't want to spent $500 on a kit.

alan2308

Futura wrote: »

what I meant to say was that they were the lowest spec ones with the oldest IOS and had no way of updating the IOS to a newer version.

Somebody told me on this board that they needed a lot of work doing to them.

The 2600's all run up to IOS 12.3 just fine, provided you have sufficient memory and flash. And if you load the IOS from tftp rather than flash, you can run some smaller versions of 12.4 that were designed for the 2600XM.

For the CCNA, anything with 12.2 or higher should be fine. That means pretty much any IOS-based router you can find on eBay except for the 1005 should do.

Michael2 wrote: »

Are those videos really helpful? Did you use them? I'm planning to go for my CCNA, but I really don't want to spent $500 on a kit.

Yes, they're a great supplement to your book of choice. There's some previews up on their site if you want to check them out. Unless you're coming in with a real strong Cisco background, I wouldn't use them as your primary study source though.