What do you with all these routers. etc...

Okay, so I'm not studying Cisco stuff, yet. But I've been reading the forums for a while, and I'm always hearing how people need routers and other assorted equipment to practice Cisco stuff. But my question, once it's hooked up, what then? I don't mean knowing how to configure them either. I kind of do the same with my MCSA lab(obviously not much comparitively), but how do you create a router problem or whatever to fix, when you already know the solution, because it's your fault in the first place.... I've seen some the "famous" racks online, people with 2 or 3 full racks of Cisco stuff.....I guess once I start studying it might make more sense.......

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Comments

Alien

The router can only be configured thru commands using hyperterminal which is a very different experience from how you configure Windows. Basically the problems usually relate to not having enuff skills, knowledge or experience to perform a certain task such as configuring a routing protocol, NAT, Frame-Relay. Using real routers/switches helps to gain the skills and knowledge required to configure, maintain and troubleshoot routing protocols, WAN protocols, ISDN connections, Frame-Relay, ACL, NAT etc.
I'm just a beginner in this field and my experience with routers and switches is approximately two years (one and half in school lab the other half thru remote labs)and i'm not CCNA yet even after graduating from the CISCO academy.I hope the real guru's might shed more light. Interesting question indeed.

wildfire

Half the fun is setting up your lab, then creating a working solution. Then using things like the debug command you can see what happens when you pull a link out.
When you first venture into the World of Cisco its all about learning the commands and getting confidence with it. I cant see how people could go for a Cisco networking job having only ever used simulators! would you even know where to put the cables!

Theres a whole host of things to do with equipment later on in your CCNA studies create access lists and see what effect they have.

tunerX

I usually use my lab to study the hundreds of different commands and the thousands of options for each command. You need experience when trying out different settings and combinations of settings so you can understand what you can do to make your network run better.

I design a network, run a protocol analyzer, traffic generator, and BGP route generator. While everything is cooking, I tweak QOS, routing protocol settings, ... etc. There are hundreds if not thousands of different tasks and requirements to create a robust, secure, scalable, redundant, and reliable network.

It isn't like Windows where you have an IP address or two and exchange some data back and forth. For network design, administration, and management. You have to make sure the network is running, optimally, for every application or service that is important to a business.