Please recomend some good hands on practice labs for CCNP & CCIE Voice

druk_yul@hot

Please recomend some good hands on practice labs for CCNP & CCIE Voice?

Thanks

gorebrush

As a CCIE candidate - Make your own.

Seriously, just get stuck in and play with it all, learn it all, love it all.

DexterPark

Taken from the CCIE Collaboration Lab Docs located on Cisco's certification site:

CCIE Collaboration Lab Equipment and Software List
Passing the lab exam requires a depth of understanding difficult to obtain without hands-on
experience. Early in your preparation you should arrange access to equipment similar to that
used on the exam, and listed below:
Lab Equipment:
• Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) C460 Rack Server
• Cisco 3925 Integrated Services Routers Generation 2 (ISR G2)
• Cisco 2921 Integrated Services Routers Generation 2 (ISR G2)
ISR G2 Modules and Interface Cards
• - 1-Port 3rd Gen Multiflex Trunk Voice/WAN Int. Cards - T1/E1
• - Cisco High-Density Packet Voice Digital Signal Processor Modules (PVDM3)
• - Cisco Service Ready Module 710 Service Module with Cisco Unity Express
• - 4-port Cisco Gigabit EtherSwitch 10/100/1000BASE-TX autosensing EHWIC with POE
• Cisco Catalyst 3750-X Series Switch
• Cisco Unified IP Phones 7965 and 9971
• Cisco Jabber for Windows
• Cisco Jabber Video for Cisco Telepresence*
*In backbone, no candidate configuration required
Software Versions
Any major software release which has been generally available for six months is eligible for
testing in the CCIE Collaboration Lab Exam.
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager 9.1
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express 9.1
• Cisco Unified Contact Center Express 9.0
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager IM and Presence 9.1
• Cisco Unity Connection 9.1
• Cisco Unity Express 8.6
• All routers use IOS version 15.2(4) M Train
• Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series Switches uses 15.0(2) Main Train
CCIE Collaboration Lab Equipment and Software List


Network Interfaces
• Fast Ethernet
• Frame Relay
Telephony Interfaces
• T1/E1

© 1992-2013 Cisco Systems Inc. All Rights Reserved. Generated on 2013-06-12-07:00

wintermute000

Its not such a dumb question, at least not compared to R&S/Sec/SP, where scenarios can be googled up and you just need a bunch of starting show runs (and ideally the finished ones!) to plug into GNS3.

I feel for the Voice candidates. The gear is expensive, specialised, involves lots of server components / specialised modules useless for other tracks, and labs/scenarios often cannot be easily described or snapshotted e.g. server configs.

I would never have passed my NP Voice without years of work exposure. No way I am labbing E1 trunking/CUBE @ home with two voice capable, DSPed 28xx class chassis, then a carrier SIP connection with multiple channels and a range, that's just for CVOICE too rofl and not counting Unity Express modules.

pitviper

wintermute000 wrote: »

No way I am labbing E1 trunking/CUBE @ home with two voice capable, DSPed 28xx class chassis, then a carrier SIP connection with multiple channels and a range, that's just for CVOICE too rofl and not counting Unity Express modules.

Meh, cheap SIP carriers are dime a dozen these days. No reason for a voice candidate to at least play around with a cheap connection if they have a capable router @ home - plus it could always be simulated (like we've been doing with the PSTN for years).

wintermute000

I take your point, but all the rest of it, + ESXi server with all the CUCM doodads, ideally multiple ESXi or at least multiple Pub/Sub setup.... are you also going to lab redundant unity? presence? DSPs, NMEs, voicemail modules. Even then the scenarios you can come up with are far short of prod complexity.

Contrast to my GNS3 and half rack of 6x 3560s and 6x 1841s which can relatively speaking generate far more complex and larger topologies that are close to real life (in GNS3 case I often ran a 1:1 simalcrum of key R&S segments in my prod environment, and more often than not real changes would go 1:1 like the lab right down to the exact routing tables etc.).

I dunno it just feels like Voice candidates get the short end of the labbing stick (well not as badly as CCIE DC candidates!!!!!!! at least until titanium comes out).