CCNA/CCNP Physical Lab Equipment??

Hello everyone,

I will be studying to achieve my CCNA and will be jumping towards the CCNP right after but I do not even know where to start towards building a home lab for myself. I've been told packet tracer would do the trick for CCNA but i don't buy it as i will be working with the equipment so virtualizing this doesn't make sense since I'm making this a career as apposed to just a certificate. Would anyone be able to please give me an idea of what I would need for a CCNA/CCNP lab?? I will be using my tax refund to purchase this equipment but have no idea where to start. Any suggestions are highly appreciated and thank you in advance guys.

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Comments

pevangel

I say stick with Packet Tracer and GNS3. If money was not an issue, I would still prefer virtual/software. There are a lot of advantages with virtualized gear over real gear:

- I can do any lab, anywhere, anytime as long as I have my laptop with me.
- Setting up labs, the connections, and booting everything up takes a lot less time.
- I can build a topology, work on it, save it, and come back to it at a later time. No need to rewire the lab every time I switch topologies.
- I can run 20+ routers which allows me to lab things like an enterprise with multiple branch sites connected to an ISP running MPLS.
- It's free!!! Let's face it, money is always an issue. If it wasn't, then you'd see more people running expensive gear instead of cheap EOL gear.

Save your money for a couple of 3560s and a server(s) to run GNS3, CSR1000v, ASAv, vSRX, vMX, VM-200/300/1000, BIG-IP VEs, <stick any vendor's virtual appliance here>. Everyone's going virtual. We've had some of the biggest vendors in networking in our office recently and every single one pitched some virtual appliance.

cee134

So what do you do when you can't get Packet tracer and have no iOS for GNS3? I don't have much money to spend on training but would like to get my CCNA. I have all the books I need, which I get at my local Library.

Paulieb81

cee134 wrote: »

So what do you do when you can't get Packet tracer and have no iOS for GNS3? I don't have much money to spend on training but would like to get my CCNA. I have all the books I need, which I get at my local Library.

You get real creative finding an IOS or old hardware.

MTciscoguy

A copy of IOS is not difficult to come by, I have access to quite a few of them.

NetworkNewb

You can get packet tracer very easily... do google search for Free Student Edition Packet Tracer. Or like others said you can buy old cheap hardware and get the image off those.

Deemeetri

Paulieb81 Hey man can you link me to your thread, I'm not sure how to look for it