Next big jump toward CCNA

mattlee09

Officially bought my first Cisco gear!

Passed ICND1 on Monday, ready to move on and get into ICND2.

I ordered:

3745 256/128
2650XM 128/64
2620XM 128/48
2610
2610
NM-4A/S
WIC-1T (Quantity 2 so far)

That should take care of my routing needs, correct?

Going to work on my switches and cables later tonight, so let me know if I'm missing anything in the router section so far so I can add it in to tonights order. I guess I'll need more WIC-1Ts for the 2610s, or do I need at least 1 WIC-2T for any particular topology(ies)?

huwwatkins

mattlee09 wrote: »

Officially bought my first Cisco gear!

Passed ICND1 on Monday, ready to move on and get into ICND2.

I ordered:

3745 256/128
2650XM 128/64
2620XM 128/48
2610
2610
NM-4A/S
WIC-1T (Quantity 2 so far)

That should take care of my routing needs, correct?

Going to work on my switches and cables later tonight, so let me know if I'm missing anything in the router section so far so I can add it in to tonights order. I guess I'll need more WIC-1Ts for the 2610s, or do I need at least 1 WIC-2T for any particular topology(ies)?

For CCNA anything you can do with a wic2t you can do with 2x wic 1t.

okplaya

Three routers is sufficient for the objectives on the ICND2. I guess you could add a 4th for variety when doing frame relay, but not really necessary. WIC-2T doubles your ports.

Unless you want to spend more, you could really get by with the switches you're getting tonight and that's it.

mattlee09

huwwatkins wrote: »

For CCNA anything you can do with a wic2t you can do with 2x wic 1t.

What I meant more by that was, how many cards/interfaces total will I need to cover any topology scenario I would encounter during ICND2 (and later even CCNP) studies?

From what I understand, I'll slide the NM-4A/S in the 3745, and then connect each of the 4 routers to it? So I'll need at a minimum 1 serial connection for each router (4 WIC-1T's, if you will). Since I already have 2 WIC-1T's, I was thinking that getting 2 WIC-2T's for the other 2 routers would allow me to explore redundant connections and advanced topologies, that sort of thing.

- ML

huwwatkins

I imagine if you have the 4nm-a/s in the 3745 then 2 wic 1-t's or 1 wic2-t in each other router would cover most.

RickRandhawa

mattlee09 wrote: »

Officially bought my first Cisco gear!

Passed ICND1 on Monday, ready to move on and get into ICND2.

I ordered:

3745 256/128
2650XM 128/64
2620XM 128/48
2610
2610
NM-4A/S
WIC-1T (Quantity 2 so far)

That should take care of my routing needs, correct?

Going to work on my switches and cables later tonight, so let me know if I'm missing anything in the router section so far so I can add it in to tonights order. I guess I'll need more WIC-1Ts for the 2610s, or do I need at least 1 WIC-2T for any particular topology(ies)?

Are you planning to go on to the CCNP afterwards? If so, that may change up some of the stuff you want to grab.

For example, you prolly wanna grab a layer 3 switch which you can use for basic CCNA functions, but will be essential for CCNP...rather than rebuying again later. Same goes for your choice in modules.

mattlee09

RickRandhawa wrote: »

Are you planning to go on to the CCNP afterwards? If so, that may change up some of the stuff you want to grab.

For example, you prolly wanna grab a layer 3 switch which you can use for basic CCNA functions, but will be essential for CCNP...rather than rebuying again later. Same goes for your choice in modules.

Probably by the end of the year, if I don't let myself get hoodwinked by Microsoft too much. Definite on the L3 switch, I think I already had that written down.

Anything on the routing side I should watch for in particular to be CCNP-compatible? (I've got IOS's covered). What modules are you suggesting/referring to?

alan2308

mattlee09 wrote: »

Probably by the end of the year, if I don't let myself get hoodwinked by Microsoft too much. Definite on the L3 switch, I think I already had that written down.

Anything on the routing side I should watch for in particular to be CCNP-compatible? (I've got IOS's covered). What modules are you suggesting/referring to?

The 2600XM's and the 3745 will still be useful for CCNP, they can both run a decent enough IOS with no problem. The 2610 can run smaller 12.4 images if you boot them from tftp (assuming they have enough RAM), so they'll still have some use.

You may want to consider a 4th router capable of running a decent IOS when you start looking towards the CCNP (The 1760's and 1721's are cheap and fit the bill), but you should be fine with what you already have. Just make sure you pick up enough WIC modules. You want at least 2 WIC-1T's (or a single WIC-2T) in each router except for the one holding the NM-4AS. There's also the WIC-1DSU-T1's which you can find as cheap as $5 and you can make the T1 crossover cables yourself.