Putting the lab together

JZegers

Guys, i am looking into putting a CCIE lab together. Is there anywhere i can just buy a complete kit that comes with a workbook specifically for the equipment? Or do you recommend putting it together individually? What is the best way to go about this? Kind of lost on where to start.

jason_lunde

Pick who you are gonna train with first....there are alot of options like INE, IPX, CCbootcamp, Netmasters, Narbik, Cisco 360. Pick that first..build your topology out against whoever you go with (they will have diagrams, physical cabling specs, router models, etc...for you in most cases).

JZegers

is there one that is better than the other or one that most people use on here?

jason_lunde

I can only speak for INE..as they are the only one that I have used alot. Their product is really good, though they have been a little slow on the updates recently. They have a pretty good set of Mock labs as well, and the topology is fairly cheap to piece together and is well documented (they give pretty heavy discounts pretty often too on the whole package). If I had to do it over again though I would def. take a look at Netmasters I think. I recently found out that they are the company actually writing the Cisco 360 mock labs and stuff as well, so you can probably catch some discounts there somewhere.

Turgon

jason_lunde wrote: »

I can only speak for INE..as they are the only one that I have used alot. Their product is really good, though they have been a little slow on the updates recently. They have a pretty good set of Mock labs as well, and the topology is fairly cheap to piece together and is well documented (they give pretty heavy discounts pretty often too on the whole package). If I had to do it over again though I would def. take a look at Netmasters I think. I recently found out that they are the company actually writing the Cisco 360 mock labs and stuff as well, so you can probably catch some discounts there somewhere.

I use INE and have used IPExpert. Im not sure about Netmasters because they went to 360 a couple of years ago and the track is expensive for self financing students.

mikej412

The Netmaster Material became the Cisco360 program -- which is why the more popular self-study workbook providers like IPE and INE didn't "sign up."

CCBootCamp did sign up -- but I think that's because they probably are the Cisco360 Voice provider.

Some of the Netmaster Video On Demands (one year access) go down to minute detail. Others don't. And the combined set costs $$$$$$$$ (big dollars) and isn't as complete as the offerings from IPE or INE.

I guess if you pay the 10K+ for the complete 360 program (for 1 year access) then you have motivation to slack at work and ignore your family so that you get your money's worth and pass the lab before you lose access to the materials.

I'd say Internetwork Expert is the most popular right now. IPExpert doesn't have Scott Morris anymore (and neither does INE), but I think he was still there when the R&S v4 material was mostly created. The "new guy" who did the updated IPE audios did do a great job.

And Narbik at his MicronicsTraining company seems to be popular for his bootcamps (and he has R&S Lab and Troubleshooting workbooks).

There were some good deals in the past on 2651XM routers as some 3rd party rack rental providers were selling off their equipment (either to upgrade or go out of business). There were/are 12.3 2600 IOS images that support MPLS.

I have a combination of 3640s (with NM-2FE2W, 2 WIC-1T, and 1 NM-4A/S), 2651XM routers (with 2 WIC-1T), 2 3750 switches, and 2 3550 switches. I just use an FE port instead of the Gig ports that might show up in an occasional workbook lab. And it seems that most 3rd party workbook labs keep the 3650 switch specific commands to the same two switches in their topologies -- so worst case sometimes my 3750 switches would be SW1 and SW2 and other times they may have to be SW3 and SW4. But even with the home lab (and Dynamips) I still use Graded Labs and Proctor Labs rack rental when I want to do some timed (and graded labs or mock labs) -- some of the deals have been too good to pass up.

Turgon

JZegers wrote: »

Guys, i am looking into putting a CCIE lab together. Is there anywhere i can just buy a complete kit that comes with a workbook specifically for the equipment? Or do you recommend putting it together individually? What is the best way to go about this? Kind of lost on where to start.

Happy New Year. How are your studies going?