Cisco Hardware learning advice

ryu

ryu

Associate
Joined
25 Oct 2002
Posts
1,039
Hi all

Just after a little advice for learning Cisco switches and routing.

I am a Network Admin/Sys Admin in my day job but only have experience with what my company uses which is Netgear switches/Draytek Routers/Watchguard Firewall etc.

If I was to buy the following lab pack for £90 off of the well known auction site would these be adequate for following along with the labs?

Cisco Devices
2 x Cisco 2621XM (Router With Two Fast Ethernet Ports)
3 x Cisco WS-C2950-24 (SWITCH)

Any features these would lack or anything I need to be aware of?

Thanks in advance
 
Last edited:
Caporegime
Joined
26 Aug 2003
Posts
37,492
Location
Leafy Cheshire
Whilst I agree that GNS3 and Packet Tracer can indeed get you through the knowledge needed for ICND1 and ICND2, having the kit around and going beyond the scope of the syllabus can REALLY aid you in feeling familiar with real kit (password recovery, IOS upgrades, physical connectivity, etc).
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Apr 2009
Posts
3,159
I tend to find having actual physical kit makes things so much easier. That kit should be ok you may want to get some serial cards as the CCNA i believe still covers it.
 

ryu

ryu

Associate
OP
Joined
25 Oct 2002
Posts
1,039
Hi thanks for the feedback.

I agree that it's nice to have the chance to play around with actual hardware, familiarise and become comfortable with it, doing firmware upgrades etc.

I have had a play around with packet tracer and have been following some of the easier tutorials and its a great little program to simulate the experience and learn from in a clutter free environment. There seemed to be limitations in the inability to be able to do extended vlans, so I assume there may be numerous other things along the way, can these be done using GNS3? I have not taken a look at that yet.

I am merely intrigued at the moment and have no need to learn this at my current job but who knows what the future holds.
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Jan 2010
Posts
21,947
I bought a lab.

Really wasn't worth it.

It's a pain waiting for the devices to boot up, they don't support the latest iOS, they use a lot of electricity (comparatively) and you spend most of your time wondering what to actually do with them.

GNS or PacketTracer.

Hi thanks for the feedback.

I agree that it's nice to have the chance to play around with actual hardware, familiarise and become comfortable with it, doing firmware upgrades etc.

I have had a play around with packet tracer and have been following some of the easier tutorials and its a great little program to simulate the experience and learn from in a clutter free environment. There seemed to be limitations in the inability to be able to do extended vlans, so I assume there may be numerous other things along the way, can these be done using GNS3? I have not taken a look at that yet.

I am merely intrigued at the moment and have no need to learn this at my current job but who knows what the future holds.

GNS3 is literally a virtualisation platform for the actual Cisco IOS.
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Dec 2004
Posts
22,367
Location
S.Wales
I have some spare kit but I never used it through ICND1 &2 for the CCNA was more convenient for me to lab in GNS3

Even CCNP route I got through without physicals. CCNP switch is where you want to get dirty with some physical switches as some of features you can't do in GNS3 with the etherswitch module
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
1 Dec 2004
Posts
22,367
Location
S.Wales
There should be plenty of youtube guides on how to set it up. Once it's running and you have images to use its pretty self explanatory, you need to get your Cisco IOS images ready in a folder somewhere to use and point GNS3 to them

Drag device from menu bar on left on to your work area. Double the device to bring it up in console CLI.

Make sure you set idle CPU values so it doesn't hammer your processor.

You can add etherswitch modules in to a capable device right click configuration I think then you can add in the slots.

Other stuff you can do, there should be plenty of youtube or web guides though
 
Back
Top Bottom