HOw can i practice labs for SWITCH exam

I have just cleared ROUTE exam and for labs i used GNS.
I prepared totally from home so i don't have any real routers and switches.

Now how can i practice SWICTH labs without real switches.
Did anyone cleared SWITCH without working on real SWITCHES

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Comments

vinbuck

I can't say for sure, but I think you'll find that it's going to be pretty tough because the NM-16 you can use in GNS3 won't cover everything.

However you can always use this free lab if buying some used switches on E-bay isn't an option.

Packet Life

SharkDiver

I was in the same boat that you are.
I was able to get two 2950 switches on eBay for about $50 each.
It may be $100 that you don't want to spend, but it really is the best way.

Good Luck.

ZachB

Keep looking on eBay for 2950's. I just scored 3 for $75 shipped last week. Looks like 3550's are $100-120 depending.

nel

Get some 3550's

malcybood

Cisco 3550's with an EMI image on them. Seem to be going for a lot less that the £200 I paid for mine 2 or so years ago!

Even with old code you can do everything you need to.

Also 2950's are fine for things like the below so get a couple of them.

- port security
- VLANs
- Etherchannels (PaGP and Lacp)
- AutoQoS - although not all functionality is there that you'f get on a 3550

My recommendation would be 1 x 3550 and 2 x 2950's and you can easily mix into your GNS3 virtual environment these days so you could run HSRP between your 3550 and GNS3 router (in theory although I've not tried that particular scenario)

martell1000

I was looking into the same problem. In the CBT Nuggets SWITCH serie jeremy is using a 2950 and a 3550 to do most of the stuff.

But i guess getting at least 3 switches might be good for alle the RSTP stuff...

pham0329

mirror51 wrote: »

Did anyone cleared SWITCH without working on real SWITCHES

I did...but to be honest, I'm probably going to go back and review SWITCH once I'm done with ROUTE. I used a combination of Packet Tracer, and GNS3 for my labbing during the switch exam and while it worked, I wasn't quite as comfortable with the topics as I would have liked to be.

mirror51

How can i use packet tracer and GNS together. Can i just use packet tracwe only.
I know that there is lot of diff b/w real swithes and simulation but i just want to prepare for exam labs

martell1000

mirror51 wrote: »

How can i use packet tracer and GNS together. Can i just use packet tracwe only.
I know that there is lot of diff b/w real swithes and simulation but i just want to prepare for exam labs

I wouldnt use PT for CCNP it doesn't support all of the commands for spanning tree cost or priority, switch redundancy, some switchport commands are missing, etc.

PT is great for CCENT/CCNA preparation, but things are getting too complex for PT az CCNP level...

I would get real switch equipment if possible. GNS3 is nice for routing, and can be combined with your real equipment using a NIC as an uplink to it, you can even connect the whole thing to the internet and ping things from routers in GNS3.

hkechoes

just purchase the cisco learning labs SWITCH bundle, it's a structured labs hosted in cisco. Not a perfect tool, but better than nothing, and the user feedback looks not quite good.

Started the first lab only for 5 minutes before sleep last night.

Found that the lab window won't start using the recommended setup (Win 7 + IE 9) but using Firefox 5 solved the problem.

The most suck thing is that the lab topology and instruction can only be seen when the timer is ticking :<

billyr

Can you take a screen shot and print it off for reference?