CCNP/CCIE lab

EdTheLad

Hi All,
I need some advice about what equipment to buy.
Soon, as in a couple of days i will sit my CCNA exam, i plan after that to do the CCNP and hopefully i will have this finished by Dec.
After this i am planning on the CCIE.
I have 5 years telecoms exp and i reckon with this and a CCIE ill be laughing.
The only problem is during the 5 years ive mostly worked with Wan protocols
such as FR,ATM,ISDN blah blah blah.
Now im trying to get into my real passion which is IP.
So what equipment is best to buy, i have money but i dont want to waste it, if their is a router which is essential i will buy.Obviously i will buy a 2950 for the FE interface and also either a 2621 or a 2622.Do you think i need a switch with a gigabit interface?What other routers would you recommend?
I'm thinking about buying about 5 2610's and then some 2500's.To be able to work intensely with BGP how many routers do i need?
My plan is to learn everything possible about these routers and networking not just for the exam for myself and also my future job.
Since i have no hands on exp at an ISP, basically i want to create my own ISP in my living room.Please if you have any input go for it, if you know average prices for the eq it sould save me alot of time on ebay.Also include WIC's and VIC's if you can.

Thanks alot in advance.....

Yankee

Do it in reverse and go look at some CCIE lab examples. Consider buying the equipment sufficient to configure their labs. You will probably find you want something to act as a frame-relay switch and you can't get enough serials on a 2600 to do that adequately.

Yankee

wildfire

This topics been covered a few times but depending on your budget you could either start small and build on it like I did, or go the whole hog.

2621 is ideal with a 2950, although for CCIE a 3550 is a wise in vestment, a 2520 makes a good frame relay switch, it has 10 serial ports. A 3620 is also worth considering instead of a 2610 as it supports a lot more modules. VIC's are no longer requied for CCIE routing and switching, voice has been removed so thats up to you. Rough prices vary depending on whats available etc, but I know someone called chipset solutions offers complete CCIE labs.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=73321&item=5777345342&rd=1

Personally I would start with waht you need for now and add as you go, this way you have more chance of staying current.

Yankee

3550s are going away, so prices will drop on them in the near future I would suspect.

Yankee

EdTheLad

Thanks guys, at the moment i've got myself 1 2620,7 2610's and 1 2950.
I've upgraded all and now all i'm waiting on now are my cables which hopefully will arrive tomorrow.I think these will be enough for now as i'm just starting on my BSCI.

Thanks for the advice,

Ed

tunerX

Yankee wrote:

3550s are going away, so prices will drop on them in the near future I would suspect.

Yankee

The 3550 is still the switch in the R&S lab. It may get updated in the future with the 3750, but the features should still be equivalent for quite some time. The EOS for the 3550 is May 2006, the EOL will be later than that. You should still expect to see IOS updates for the switches, but will not get the good IPSec/Firewall/Voice features that larger flashes and memory architectures will allow.

Yankee

I concur with Turner. The jump from the 3550 to the 3750 will not be a big change in the Lab like the one from the Cat5 to the 3550 was. I lost a fair amount of money when that happened because token ring was also removed and I owned a Cat5 and a 3900 switch....

Yankee

darkuser

word ..... i still don't have 2600's
I use my 2500's for practicing base ip stuff and am working with internetworkexpert and doing rack rental.
it's too expensive to try to keep up.

my isdn simulator is now junk .....