Simulator Questions

Alright, I've been searching through forums here and elsewhere trying to avoid cluttering up this page with more of the same question, but I can't seem to come to a conclusive answer for my current situation, so I am here to ask for your help.

I am currently studying for ICND1 (with ICND2 obviously to follow). I'm reading through Odom's ICND1 book, and when finished, I'll read Lammle's book as well. Now I'm just trying to figure out the best additional materials to pair all of this with.

Simulators:

- I currently have Packet Tracer (and GNS3, fwiw), but am looking into a simulator that will provide me with labs as well.

- Odom's CCNA Simulator follows his book very well and has a lot of labs, but doesn't have a free-play sandbox mode, and also includes step-by-step instructions for each lab instead of giving a goal and saying "go".

- Boson's NetSim 10 for CCNA has labs and a sandboxed mode and comes highly recommended, but I'm wondering if paying $154 for a sandbox is worth it if I already have Packet Tracer for that purpose. Are the labs that come with Boson worth the price/better than Odom?

Practice Exams:

- I'm currently leaning toward purchasing Boson's practice exams when I'm ready to start taking them, and if you guys have any guidance for/against this decision, I'm all ears.

I greatly appreciate any and all help you guys can provide. Cheers.

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Comments

mikeybinec

Big fan of Boson!! I always recommend buying real hardware because it forces you to install a patch panel and build crossover and straight thru cables, and getting a laptop with usb to console cable. PT is ok for checking quick show commands IF that command is supported in PT. I don't do GNS because of the fact you have to obtain a Cisco flash image and frankly, it can be construed as stealing software (although everybody does it, 'cept me)

Jon_Cisco

I never used the simulators but I had a bunch of packet tracer activities from the Net Academy already.

For a sandbox I would go with packet tracer. Super easy and if you learn to play with it the simulation mode will help answer most of your problems.
To see the real IOS and all of the options GNS3.

I often kept GNS3 open in the background to confirm commands that were missing in packet tracer. As long as you understand whats missing you could usually finish the labs working around the problem.

For labs I will defer to someone that has used them.

chronos42

Good stuff, I appreciate the help, guys.

While I agree that I would learn best from a real lab, I think that with the way my schedule is, I'll be able to spend a lot more time working with a simulator.

I do like the packet tracer interface and have played with it a bit. Anybody else with simulator/lab experience have any insight?

mikeybinec

Of the topic, Chronos, I know that there is a subset of A+ that deals with networks only. Would you consider a Cisco Network Cert higher than A+ or?

chronos42

mikeybinec wrote: »

Of the topic, Chronos, I know that there is a subset of A+ that deals with networks only. Would you consider a Cisco Network Cert higher than A+ or?

While A+ briefly touches some very basic networking topics, it's not really a networking cert. Perhaps you're thinking of Network+, which is another CompTIA cert above A+? If that's what you mean, then yes, I could consider any Cisco cert to be higher than a Network+.