Ebay VmWare CCIE Voice Lab

cuuloco10

Hi All,

My CIPT1 & CIPT2 Training just got suspended due to budget restrictions. So i did find this link on ebay ; and i'm curious if anybody has bought this package; and i'd like to hear feedback and recommendations.

Input is appreciated !

Regards,

C.

cuuloco10

Dell 1950 VMWare Cisco CCIE Voice Lab CUCM 7 & 8 Server - eBay (item 230593989870 end time Apr-04-11 22:52:00 PDT)

cuuloco10

Cisco CCIE CCVP Voice VMWare CUCM CUPS UC UCCX 7 8 2TB - eBay (item 230597474417 end time Apr-14-11 14:40:09 PDT)

pitviper

I’m personally not a big fan of those kits – Too expensive and I feel that you’ll learn much more by doing the installations yourself. Obtaining the software is sometimes a problem though. You have the options of phoning a friend (if you happen to know someone with a CUCM installation), asking a rep (you can sometimes get a not for resale media kit), ebay (I’ve seen the software media kits on ebay for less than $100), and of course scouring the interwebs for “other” sources. The CUCM media comes with the demo licensing built-in.

skinsFan202

I think you can put together something decent on your own for that same $1300 you'd spend

cuuloco10

Thanks for the logical input !! it's appreciated. I'm going for at least 3 HP DL320 servers; and use two for a Pub/Sub on Site A, One HP DL320 for Site B as Pub, and use the 2651XM for Site C as CME4.1' so that's the plan.

The other obstacle is the CUCM 8 Media - but you guys are correct, i think the CUCM 8 NFR Kit is about 300.00, so for a total expected expense of 1000+/-..

IPDirect

Honestly man, I bought one of those kits. I bought the 1TB v8 one because the dual v7/v8 2TB one just isnt necessary. (The kit which included the v8 cluster was $1199, but I offered $1050 and he accepted that offer).

Sure, I could have spent the time learning VMware, found out specifically which hardware EXSi likes to run on, done my research, etc....but I'd rather spend that time learning to use the actual software. Plus, after you spend the money on 12GB of ram, 1Tb harddrive, network card, case, etc....you're not gonna save very much.

To me it wasn't worth spending 2 weeks of my limited free time, to learn something I didn't care to learn, in order to save $150.

chmorin

IPDirect wrote: »

Honestly man, I bought one of those kits. I bought the 1TB v8 one because the dual v7/v8 2TB one just isnt necessary. (The kit which included the v8 cluster was $1199, but I offered $1050 and he accepted that offer).

Sure, I could have spent the time learning VMware, found out specifically which hardware EXSi likes to run on, done my research, etc....but I'd rather spend that time learning to use the actual software. Plus, after you spend the money on 12GB of ram, 1Tb harddrive, network card, case, etc....you're not gonna save very much.

To me it wasn't worth spending 2 weeks of my limited free time, to learn something I didn't care to learn, in order to save $150.

Something worth keeping in mind is if you actually consider the effort into learning VMWare ESXi as a waste of time. If you are already in an advanced environment working in only networking and won't touch virtualization environments in your job, then it is probably a waste of time. For the rest of us, that knowledge may be worth learning. We may live and support a cisco lifestyle, but that is not to limit us and close our mind to other technologies that could very possibly be used with our environments we maintain.

IPDirect

chmorin wrote: »

Something worth keeping in mind is if you actually consider the effort into learning VMWare ESXi as a waste of time. If you are already in an advanced environment working in only networking and won't touch virtualization environments in your job, then it is probably a waste of time. For the rest of us, that knowledge may be worth learning. We may live and support a cisco lifestyle, but that is not to limit us and close our mind to other technologies that could very possibly be used with our environments we maintain.

Very valid point!

geezer301

IPDirect,

I am thinking of the V7/V8 kit. The $1000 plus is quite a pretty penny for me. Can I ask you a question or two 'off-forum' ? Thanks.

cuuloco10

Hi,
I did see your posting; I did take the route of building the server myself. I did purchase a Dell 1950 on ebay for about 350 - 400 with 6GB/Raid 0 Dual 72 GB and i did order the Cisco NFR kit on CUCM 8.0 for 275.00 Cisco Market place( you need partner status) & VmWare 4.1 - the result a decent server for about 750 or so ...


Regards,

C

nagamin

I had setup my CUCM lab with Dell 1950 dual quad core with MS 2003 server. Then CUCMwas running on VMware workstaion 7. One 2811, one 2611XM, one 2612, one 3620. NTP was running on 1710.
Plus 2 7970 IP phones, 1 3524, 1 2950, 1 1900 switchs.
And bunch of wic cards from eBay.
For me I got alot exprience on CUCM and CME installation.
You can't get that if you buy preloaded lab.
Spend little more time to build from ground up.
That make me feels good.

Flyingput

I bought only virtual machines DVDs (CUCM, UN, UCCX, CUPS...) on eBay to finish my CCVP solidly. They run on Dell 840 & SC440 low end servers just fine.

Then w/ my CCVP I changed job to a gold partner, where we learn ESXi and have chance to rebuild production systems, PAID. :D