website for home labs

ToddB

The CCNP Voice - Cisco VOIP Lab Kit CCNA CCIE CUCM Server 8.6 CCVP CME UNITY.

would this be a good product all the way through to CCNP VOICE. Price seems good next to what Ive checked, Also has a ccna voice lab for $575.

Need your thoughts, trying to get something that will work for my ccna voice up to CCNP Voice.

pitviper

I wouldn’t touch it. The gear in that lab is really dated. You would be much better off collecting equipment a la carte.

ToddB

Great, back to the drawing board. It seemed like a price I could do, $600. If I wanted to go with real equipment whats the cheapest way to start for a ccna voice lab where I could then add to for my other certs. I checked out rack rental places but are mostly for CCIE and not at my level.

shodown

well the current exam up to CCNP is on the 8x versions of CUCM, CUE, so you can get by with the 28xx routers, The new CCIE V will be released soon, and it will be ver 8.6 or ver 9. If its its 9 then depending on the IOS running will determine what routers are needed. If they run less that 15.2 then you can get by with the 28xx, if its higher than that you will need 29xx.

So lets just say you are going to do up to CCNP V

You can build a starter lab with 1 2801 for your Branch router with a 3550/60 POE for switch. The 3560 will have all the QOS features needed.
You will also need a PSTN router which you can use a 2651XM with a Voice module with DSP's. You can use your branch router swtich to power the PSTN phone. You will also need a server to run the Voice apps in VMS

1 2801,
1 PVDM-16/32 for DSP
2 WIC-1t
1 VWIC 2 port


1 2651XM or 3725 if you want to use it for FRAME and PSTN
1 Voice module with DSP's
1 VWIC 2 port

1 3550/60 switch POE

3-4 7961 IP phones.

ToddB

That will be a few bucks, question: I feel that I might be able to pass ccna voice without a lab but learn a lot less. Would it be better to try that and save my money and buy a better voice lab for my ccnp voice. Or put something together cheap and try to upgrade/ sell and rebuild.

shodown

If you are already working a voice roll, just try to pass CCNA V off of studying and work task. If you aren't working in a voice roll you have to spend some coin and get a decent voice lab to start and build on it. The lab I posted above was for a basic ccna v lab. CCNP will require a frame cloud, more phones, and at least 3 branch routers.

azaghul

While a fully kitted out ESXi server is nice to have, and really needed for CCNP/IE:Voice.

At the CCNA level you can install CUCM (etc) within VMWare workstation and just run the apps individually (thus saving a fair bit). Min requirement would be a Desktop/Laptop with 4GB RAM and a decent size hard drive.

DexterPark

I have 2x PowerEdge 1950's and I agree with Shodown about them being dated (also Noisy!!!) Plus the ram for these things are 500 -600MHZ. So I have 32gigs of snail ram in these electric bill raising servers. I would recommend opening a dell preferred account which should give you a $1200-$2000 limit and buying an Alienware laptop with a 3rd gen core i7 and 8-16gigs of DDR3 ram (1600mhz). It would be about $80-$100 a month, very affordable. I have a M14x R2 running VMWare Workstation. Great for CUCM, IPIVR, Unity Conn, and Presence Virtual Machines. GNS3 would possible allow for a CME 9x IOS image, haven't tried this yet but I have yet to run into something I couldn't virtualize!