CCNA/CCNP Home Lab, Suggestions?

[SpeeDj]

Looking to find a spot to snag some c2611xm's and c2610xm's (on the cheap) if you guys know of any spots where a guy could come across some at a savings that would be awesome. Everything I've been digging down they are going for 150$ plus and I'm not looking to drop that much on em. Any tips would be great as well, snagged a trio of c2950-24 port switches last week, on the hunt for a couple L3 capable switches on the cheap as well.

Any insight would be awesome, looking to have this ready to rock by October when I switch my focus from Juniper to Cisco to take my CCNA/CCNA-Security to close out the year hopefully and then the CCNP next year as I'm going to really begin to be needing these.

Thanks guys

J

 

[gangaskan]

Looking to find a spot to snag some c2611xm's and c2610xm's (on the cheap) if you guys know of any spots where a guy could come across some at a savings that would be awesome. Everything I've been digging down they are going for 150$ plus and I'm not looking to drop that much on em. Any tips would be great as well, snagged a trio of c2950-24 port switches last week, on the hunt for a couple L3 capable switches on the cheap as well.

Any insight would be awesome, looking to have this ready to rock by October when I switch my focus from Juniper to Cisco to take my CCNA/CCNA-Security to close out the year hopefully and then the CCNP next year as I'm going to really begin to be needing these.

Thanks guys

J

your best bet is to use ebay, or http://www.publicsurplus.com/


you could also try looking online for ccna kits, or at worst use GNS3 (cant do advanced switching, but i think you can do some rigging with it if i recall.) you do need ios images for this though, keep that in mind.

 

[SpeeDj]

your best bet is to use ebay, or http://www.publicsurplus.com/

you could also try looking online for ccna kits, or at worst use GNS3 (cant do advanced switching, but i think you can do some rigging with it if i recall.) you do need ios images for this though, keep that in mind.

I was originally using GNS3, and while that works in a pinch it's not helpful for a guy who is looking to be hands on with physically cabling/understanding how it all connects etc. IOS images aren't a dealbreaker as I work in a Fortune 500 company with access to all of that.

Thanks for the tip tho, I will hit up that site tonight after work and see what I'm able to find

J

 

[gangaskan]

I was originally using GNS3, and while that works in a pinch it's not helpful for a guy who is looking to be hands on with physically cabling/understanding how it all connects etc. IOS images aren't a dealbreaker as I work in a Fortune 500 company with access to all of that.

Thanks for the tip tho, I will hit up that site tonight after work and see what I'm able to find

J

once you cable it up its not bad, really i havent cabled up a router in years. in my ccnp labs we used Packet Tracer, mostly because of hardware limitations (lack of enough devices per se), but at any rate, 98% of your dealings will be etherent or T1 cables (not serial, just a rj45 terminated T1 jack)

or fiber