Please advise with lab hardware and setup please

jamesfh

Hi All,

Just discovered site and it is a great source of info.I did my ccna with books and semsim about 6mths ago so before i embark on the ccnp route I am going to set up a lab at work to get some real experience. Can you please answer the below questions for me. I have the following hardware at the moment for starters.I can also get my hands on a 2500 series router later to include frame relay switch.Currently I have

2 x cisco 1601 with 4MB Flash card CISCO 1600 Series IP IOS VER 11.2(20)P.One of them also has a Wic 1B S/T ISDN card.

1 x cisco 2950 switch.

I am going to do BSCI first so obviously ISDN card will/can be used later for BCRAN. I would like to know the following please.

Are these sufficient to get me through BSCI/BCMSM or will I need 3 routers for second exam? Will I need to upgrade IOS etc. ?

What is the correct type of back to back cables I need ... DTE DCE back to back crossover cable or DB60 back to back ?

What is a good source I can base my labs on i.e.configs etc. to walk me through ?

Also if there are any other problems i might encounter here please let me know?

Thanks a mil

Drakonblayde

The routers are probably good enough for BSCI, though I would recommend adding a third and fourth if you can reasonably do so.

IS-IS practice is going to be a pain though, since it's only in the Enterprise IP set.

jamesfh

Cheers,

Can you explain what you mean by Enterprise IP Set with regard to IS-IS. I can get my hands on 2 more 2500 series routers I think

Drakonblayde

IOS has subsets which have certain features. For instance, there's a voice IP subset for the voice cards and blades, there's the Firewall/IPSEC subset for security and such, and so on.

Most routers have IP base, which gives you your basic ip routing functions. IS-IS is not part of that, you have to have an IOS image with the Enterprise subset or you don't get IS-IS.