CCENT CCNA Home lab q

dannyboyw

Hi Guys,

I have been in IT for a short while and looking to break into Networking and more specifically Cisco. I have had some past experience configuring switches but never in a Cisco environment.
Right now I am studying for the ccent exam using CBT nuggets, but instead of the simulators I have tried - cisco packet tracert, GNS3 i would like physical hardware to break/fix and actually configure for real.


im reading lots of different things regarding getting a home lab setup and that there is no right or wrong way of getting one setup, the most useful site I have found it:


certskills dot com / labgear


For both of these exams would 2x 2950 switches and 2x 1721 routers be sufficient and upto date with the new sylibous, or are there any further receommendations that would be a tad better?


Casting your minds back to when (if you have) completed this exam, did you set yourself tasks to complete within your home lab - i feel this would be a good idea but as a cisco newb i am struggling to see where to start to be honest. Should I ensure that the routers and switches configs are wiped before buying - as trying to remove the contents using ciscos password remover seems to be a lot of aggro?



Any advice would be greatly appreicated.


Regards

Jon_Cisco

Don't be afraid of the password resets that's part of the benefit to owning real equipment. It took me an hour the first time I tried because I was typing one line wrong. I would rather do that now at home then learn it when my boss is in a hurry and wants something up and running.

My advice if you are just starting is buy 1 router and 1 switch. This will get you started and you can add more as you understand why you want them.

Good Luck

TechGuru80

Password recovery process is easy so don't worry about that but I can't imagine people not wiping the equipment.

It depends on how far you want to go for the equipment and budget. 1841's are really good and will last a while, however 2611xm's would be my recommendation with 12.4. Switches that are good would be 2950 and a 3550 if you want layer 3 switching at some point.

I like the kits to start because generally you don't know enough to know what you need and these are a good start. My kit was about $600 free shipping with cables and a rack. Covered basically everything up to CCNP but I have since added pieces. Check eBay but my rack to start had 3x 2611xm, 2x 2950, and 1x 3550.

TechGuru80

1841's are overkill for CCENT but they have 15.x so you can do everything instead of just most.

dannyboyw

Thanks guys for the update. In order to not interrupt the home network. For now obviously I would just like to configure the routers with private Ip's and not be connected to my home line just yet. When all I can confirm looks good should I connect up to my home router for WAN testing?

Also - did you guys follow anything in particular when actually building your lab from scratch, are there any resources I should check out

Thanks!

TechGuru80

There are two schools of thought: use the equipment as your main network, use the equipment as a separate lab network. If you use the equipment as your main network, then any wrong changes shutdown the network so you get a real life taste. Other than that it doesn't matter a whole lot to set it up to your internet connection. Also some of the equipment can be noisy when running.

Google CCNA certification kits or labs and generally you can find many variations. You will only want to look at ones that are geared towards the new test though to avoid out of date equipment that needs to be replaced later in your studies.