GNS3 + Real Switches

cisco_dog

Looking on ebay at buying a lab kit, or bits of one. Obviously there is nothing quite like using the real thing, but...

Am I better off buying a mixture of routers and switches with my budget, or just buying switches and let GNS3 take care of the routers and hosts?

Roguetadhg

I've heard of people using GNS3 for routers, all the way up to IE. GNS3 does routing really well.

Im going to be doing the latter, switches - buying what I can still use upto IE.

Keep in mind though, each time you want to bust out of the simulator - you'll need to configure a new ethernet port out of the computer. Not to mention the extra time of doing the configuring. You'll need more network interfaces.

I use GNS3 for routing and tried to use the switch modules, but bleh. But VirtualBox. Oh yeah, that's the stuff.

I wish I had known about all of these cool tools when I was studying 9 years ago. Back in my day, I had use 500 Mhz computers are hosts, and had 30 minutes of lab time, a week.

cisco_dog

New ethernet ports shouldnt be a trouble, get a card or two with multiple interfaces, sellotape them to the motherboard. And configuring ethernet ports and all that goes with it is something you are likely to be doing as part of a job anyways, so the practice will be good.

ASUSTeK

I choose the latter. It help me out alot with CCENT and now with CCNA (ICDN2). Saved a ton on lab equipment!