Testlab
The other day I ran across a post by Cybergurl that showed her home lab. It got me thinking that every serious Cisco candidate has some sort of lab. Some people use GNS3, some have a home rack and some have a rack provided by their employer. I have a combination of all three and figured I would share some of it.
The rack I use is provided by my employer but I have added quite a bit of my own kit. It is kept in the data center and I have the ability to log in from home over VPN or SSH.
The testlab at work is a short rack with this setup:
Work owned:
6 x 3640
2 x 3560
2 x 3550
1 x 3500yl
1 x Dell 1750 Linux server
My personal:
4 x 1841
1 x 2611-XM
1 x 3620
1 x 2511-RJ
The astute reader will notice that in this picture there is also an ASA. I removed my 3620 and added the ASA so that we could configure and test it before deployment. It is also nice to have that many routers because we had the ASA set up in a BGP environment while at the same time I had the rack configured for the CCNP TSHOOT exam.
What does your testlab look like?
Currently I am just running a dual core Intel with 3 gig of memory. I use GNS3 as much as possible. For switches i have 2x3550s and 3x2950s. This setup got me through my CCNP. I have maxed this out with 14 routers running BGP, MPLS and OSPF.
Im in the process of purchasing a Dell T110 for a ESX server that will allow me to build a large lab for both my CCIP and then the CCIE. It will also give me the room to build up some Juniper VMs and integrate them in.
@that1guy15
That’s a nice setup as well. It would be cool to run some olive instances, I’ve read about it, but never tried.