CCNA practice lab: stuff we have at the office

I'm wrapping up my Network +, have A+, and boss is recommending I go for the CCNA which I intend to do next. He has a CCNP among other things but it's been a while since he's handled the IT side of the house.

Being the nice guy that he is, I have the full okay to use the fair amount of leftover hardware we have here and set up in an empty office and train on it. (I have one of those jobs where I spend more time "monitoring" things than actually being busy, so this sort of on-the-job training is okay.)

Getting to the point, here's the stuff we have laying around that I can use. What I'd like to know is if it's enough to do the trick for a CCNA lab. I'm sure it's not optimal state-of-the-art hardware, that's a given, but will it reasonably get me by? And, is there anything missing?

Tons of little Optiplex PCs (Windows XP)
My notebook (modern, Win 7 64)
A 2600 switch
A 2950 switch
4 1700 routers (marked 1721 on back)

Thanks

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odysseyelite

clown wrote: »

I'm wrapping up my Network +, have A+, and boss is recommending I go for the CCNA which I intend to do next. He has a CCNP among other things but it's been a while since he's handled the IT side of the house.

Being the nice guy that he is, I have the full okay to use the fair amount of leftover hardware we have here and set up in an empty office and train on it. (I have one of those jobs where I spend more time "monitoring" things than actually being busy, so this sort of on-the-job training is okay.)

Getting to the point, here's the stuff we have laying around that I can use. What I'd like to know is if it's enough to do the trick for a CCNA lab. I'm sure it's not optimal state-of-the-art hardware, that's a given, but will it reasonably get me by? And, is there anything missing?

Tons of little Optiplex PCs (Windows XP)
My notebook (modern, Win 7 64)
A 2600 switch
A 2950 switch
4 1700 routers (marked 1721 on back)

Thanks

I had to lookup the 2600 switch and it shows it was for token ring so that is a door stop. The 1700 routers should be ok. You would want atleast one more 2950 switch, two would be ideal and you would be in good shape. As well as the proper serial wic cards.

Its a good start considering it is free. For the CCENT you really dont need hands on, but I still did so I would be ok running the commands on the sim.

SdotLow

For the CCENT, you really only need a switch and a 3-4 routers to really get a feel for things. Switches just aren't really a big part of the study plan. You'll have to see a mac table form in the switch and do config on it. All of the tough switch stuff comes in ICND2, or part 2 of the CCNA.

Unless you're taking the composite CCNA which combines the two in which case, you'll need 2 more 2950 level switches to play with. Those routers should be fine. Since you have access to the equipment you should also probably have access to the IOS upgrades? If so, playing with IOS upgrades is good practice as well, and you'll want upgraded IOS's on those routers if they're really low.

clown

Thanks for the responses. It's all still relatively unfamiliar territory for me, but if it covers the CCENT and provides some respectable level of hands-on that's good enough. I can always add on a couple pieces later for the ICDN2 work, scouting out eBay prices it doesn't seem like a big issue.

Kind of a follow-up: There seem to be a few popular sims out there, can I make do without them (at least for the ICDN1 stage)?

Also I apologize as I realize these kinds of basic questions come up all of the time. I looked through the FAQ and a lot of the threads are from 6+ years ago, many of the Cisco links are dead and so on. I did find a number of threads on which sims people like, but if unnecessary for CCENT I'll just worry about that later.

Thanks again

SdotLow

clown wrote: »

Thanks for the responses. It's all still relatively unfamiliar territory for me, but if it covers the CCENT and provides some respectable level of hands-on that's good enough. I can always add on a couple pieces later for the ICDN2 work, scouting out eBay prices it doesn't seem like a big issue.

Kind of a follow-up: There seem to be a few popular sims out there, can I make do without them (at least for the ICDN1 stage)?

Also I apologize as I realize these kinds of basic questions come up all of the time. I looked through the FAQ and a lot of the threads are from 6+ years ago, many of the Cisco links are dead and so on. I did find a number of threads on which sims people like, but if unnecessary for CCENT I'll just worry about that later.

Thanks again

Sims just let you play with virtual hardware. If you have what you said in your initial post, I wouldn't concern yourself with sims. CCENT is big on theory, which means lots of studying and memorizing. You'll need to know hands on stuff but nothing like ICND2.