Recommended Lab equipment for Cisco CCNA

Hi Alok,

This is the comment section :slight_smile:

For CCNA, using 3x 2950 and 1x 3550 is a good idea. If you can get a 3560 or 3750 for about the same price of the 3550 then you should get one of those.

About the routers, the 2611, 3725 and 3745 are cheap to get nowadays but they only run IOS 12.4. I would prefer the 1841 and/or 2811. Those are also cheap, they boot faster and they run IOS 15.

Hope that helps…if not, let me know ok?

Rene

Hey Rene,
Thanks for reply, that helped a lot. Now, person I am buying from is suggesting “3x Cisco2811 (this is the best for CCNA/CCNP/CCIE)”, would you recommend going for it? I see you’ve mentioned 2811, so I am assuming its a YES. Do I have to ask for 2811XM? Is there XM attached to this model?

           Thanks for recommending switches. I look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers,

Regards,

Hi Alok,

The 2811 is a good choice. There’s no XM model, that was only for the 2600 series. Make sure the 2811 routers have enough flash + memory. The latest IOS 15 version for the 2811 requires 128MB flash and 512MB memory.

Rene

Can you provide a link to the video for setting up GNS3 Emulator?

Hi Scott,

It’s best to check gns3.com for this. I have to say that it’s pretty much self-explanatory. However if you need anything, they have documentation and some videos.

Rene

Hi Rene,

I have bought four 3550 Cisco switches. Now if i install the latest Cisco IOS , can I achieve all the functionality similar to that of 3560 switches

Please let me know

Thank you

BR
Taslim

Hi Taslim,

You’ll have 99% o the functionality. The difference between the two is that the 3550 doesn’t support private VLANs and the QoS mechanism is different.

For CCNA / CCNP R&S, the 3550 is still a great choice.

Rene

Hi Rene,

Thank you for the confirmation

Taslim

Love it, Love it Rene, instructions is so easy understandable. I’m studying for CCNP and I might have a lot of questions regarding CCNP examine. Any tip you would regarding this mission?
Mike

Glad to hear you like it Mike!

I covered some of the most common questions about the CCNP track, that might be useful for you:

If you want to know anything specific, let me know ok?

Rene

Rene’. Is this material ready for the new CCNA exam? And what is ur recommendation with regards to the two part exam format as it related to your study material. I already have the 1st part and need the 2nd part - I am re-certifying -

Hi Itai,

This material is for the new CCNA R&S exam yes. Nowadays there is a quite some overlap between the two exams, if your ICND1 certificate is still valid then I would take only the ICND2 exam. You could encounter anything from the following list on the exam though:

https://networklessons.com/ccna-rs-lessons/

Rene

Rene,

Hello, I have 4 Cisco SG300 switches which seems to support many options, so far I haven’t seen anything they don’t support… so far. I currently have them configured with 802.1Q trunking. I think I can setup etherchannel too, which I plan on trying this weekend. What are the features to look for for the CCNA in a switch?

Thanks,

Chris

Watching the video in one of your other articles, I checked and the ‘mls’ command doesn’t exist on my switches.

Hello, I downloaded GNS3 and am interested in 1000v. From what I have found it looks like you have to buy 1000v, or am I looking at the wrong thing. If so do you know the approximate cost? I have the latest version of VMWare Fusion, which I think is the same as Workstation only it runs on a Mac instead of Linux.

For GNS3 I have an IOS image for a 7200 and 7200p (15.2), will one of those work with for CCNA and GNS3?

Thanks,

Chris

Hi Chris,

The “The Essential Edition” is a free version for the CSR1000V. I believe it’s limited by bandwidth but that doesn’t matter for labs. If you have ESXi it’s really easy to deploy them…you can probably make it work on Fusion too.

Those 7200 images should be fine for CCNA yes.

Rene

Hi Chris,

Which switch did you look at?

Rene

19 posts were merged into an existing topic: Recommended Lab equipment for Cisco CCNA

Hi Chris,

The SG300 switches have quite some features, things like vlans, trunking, etherchannels should be no problem.

They don’t run the “regular” Cisco IOS software though which makes them unsuitable for CCNA or CCNP. A lot of protocols are probably not fully supported and many of the CCNA commands won’t work.

Rene

Rene,

I have GNS3 installed with a 7200 image for the routers. I have a question on which interfaces to configure, for the first slot I have 2700C-IO-FE there are 5 more slots available and the options are:

PA-A1, PA-FE-TX, PA-2FE-TX, PA-GE, PA-4T+, PA-8T, PA-4E, PA-8E and PA-POS-OC3

Also what is the difference between the 7200 and 7200p?

Thanks,

Chris