is enough 2x3550 + 2x3560 +gns3/iou for CCIE R&S?

avc1984

Hey, i will start to study for the CCIE R&S.

I have two 3550 and two 3560.

I need to know if with that gear, and using gns3/iou will i be able to study all the blueprint?

i can'f find an updated post where see what does not work in gns3/iou, so, you think i will have to get more real gear??

SteveO86

I used GNS3 pretty heavily with CCIP studies (A lot of BGP/QoS/MPLS material) and I'll be honest GNS3 worked but I hit a fair amount of bugs and weird issues during my labbing and studying. Enough for me to justify buying real hardware for my CCIE studies.

You'll want to configure as breakout switch which should get you in the right direction for using GNS3 and the real switches.

Connect real switches to GNS3 using a Breakout Switch - YouTube

avc1984

PM
SteveO86, thanks for posting.

I know how to connect real switches with gns3/iou, what i meant in my other post is if it will be enough, the 4 real switches and gns3/iou for the routers, or there will be parts of the blueprint that i will not be able to practice due to bugs in gns3/iou.
If the number of bugs is pretty slow so i think is not worth buy real routers right?

Zartanasaurus

My lab was 4x 3560 and GNS3. You can do everything with that combination except for NTP, which causes the 7200s to lock up for some reason no matter which version of IOS you use. You can make a small lab of 3725s to practice NTP when needed as it's not a very big deal IMO. Other GNS3 routers are less ideal than the 7200s because they handle multicast poorly and that's a big technology to not have working properly in your lab.

avc1984

PM
Zartanasaurus, very useful your post, thanks.

So i will use my 4 switches + gns3 and maybe i change the 2 3550 for 2 more 3560.
One last question mate: i think i will i use the official guides from cisco press for ccie R&S and the book "routing-bits" and a lot of practice You think this will be enaugh or should i get material from vendors like INE or ipexpert?

Zartanasaurus

Enough for the Written or the Lab?

There was a guy on the INE forums who claimed he didn't purchase any workbooks, just set up a lab and went through the entire DocCD labbing all of the technologies and following the examples? Does that work? Apparently so. Is that ideal? I don't know, that's not what I did. I went with INE and went through their entire training program.

I think their All Access Pass is a good deal and I'd certainly recommend their training to anyone starting down this path.