CCIE pursuit, lab setup.

levensailor

I little about myself:

I got my CCNA in 2010 (with a few years of previous networking experience), got a job as a network engineer and since got my CCNP in R&S.
Since everything has been making a lot of sense to me, I thought it a good idea to see how far I can take it and go for the CCIE.

I have a goal of passing the written first half of 2013

As of now I have 1x1841, 1x2960, 1x3560. I saw that cisco recommends 1841, 3825, and 3560 for switches, but according to those that have taken the lab, how many routers/switches should I need to build similar topologies ?

My plan is to print out the blueprint, check off what I know already, then build labs based on what i'm less familiar with.

Personally, my girlfriend is a first year teacher, but couldn't find a job in the beach town we lived in. She now lives an hour away for the next 7 months or so. Professionally, whenever I'm not working on projects, I can spend as much time on CCIE pursuit as I want on company dime. My company also always has equipment (albeit temporarily before deploying at a customers site) that I could use to build labs. These are usually 1941s, 2921s, 3750x and nexus.

Any advice is always welcome!

QHalo

Build your lab in accordance with whatever training vendor you're going to use.