Ccie Lab Suggestions – Cisco Ccie Home Labs
The Cisco CCNP lab is one of the most difficult labs to build because it touches on so many different pieces of equipment. When you are building your Cisco CCNA lab, it is pretty easy as three Cisco router and three Cisco switches will put you in a pretty good position at a pretty reasonable price. Definitely a lot less then the price of attending a Cisco CCNA training class and you get to keep the equipment to practice on for as long as you like. When building a Cisco CCIE lab, you concentrate on one particular discipline such as CCIE Security, Voice, Service Provider, Storage or Routing and Switching so you only have to purchase Cisco equipment for that area of expertise.
Now with building your Cisco CCNP lab, you have to cover four different modules which encompass many different networking technologies. The modules are BSCI(Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks) which is basically advanced routing concepts extending everything you learned in your Cisco CCNA training to the next level. So this module requires a plethora of Cisco routers to complete most of these CCNP labs. BCMSN(Building a Cisco Multilayer Switched Network) which also extends on what you learned in your CCNA training from a Cisco Switching perspective adding in new concepts such as Layer 3 switching and QoS to a greater degree. This module really gets into the nitty gritty of Cisco Switching and thus requires some of the higher end, more expensive switches that are capable of Layer 3 switching.
Additionally in a perfect scenario, you will need multiple of these Cisco switches to complete your labs and really get the full experience of the topics. Next we have ISCW(Implementing Secure Converged Wide Area Networks) which covers how to expand your current enterprise network to remote sites and teleworkers with a focus on configuring VPN client access and securing the remote access methods. Many of these concepts can be accomplished on the Cisco routers you purchased for your BSCI module, but the possibility of adding in a VPN concentrator or PIX firewall is nice, but not an absolute requirement if you are on a tight budget. Finally the last CCNP module is ONT(Optimizing Converged Cisco Networks) which focuses on how to get the most out of your existing network by prioritizing your traffic utilizing QoS.
Much of this is applied to voice packets which is time sensitive packets that require QoS attention. In this module you will also be reviewing basic wireless security setups. So much of the QoS items will be exercised on the Cisco routers you purchased for the BSCI track and the Cisco switches you already purchased for the BCMSN track. So now you see that to a large degree, you will be able to use the equipment in the first two modules to support the concepts in the last two modules. We try to strike a balance between the amount of equipment, price of the equipment and labs that can be performed as most people do not have the budget to go out and spend ,000 to cover every single concept that is presented in the Cisco CCNP curriculum. So that is what makes it so difficult to build a Cisco CCNP lab at a reasonable price.
CCNP Lab Approach
Now that you have an idea of what you are looking to accomplish in your Cisco CCNP lab from an equipment perspective, let’s see how we might approach this. If you are not real strong on the features, pros and cons of the various routers, you may want to review our Cisco CCNA lab suggestions. Not only are there suggestions on building a Cisco CCNA lab, but we also cover many of the features and pros and cons of the various Cisco routers and Cisco switches.
Now if you are only just beginning your Cisco certification studies looking to obtain your CCNA, but are looking ahead to your CCNP, I applaud you! Network engineers must be able to sharpen their skill set of planning ahead of capacity. In this case, you are planning ahead for your Cisco certification career. So if you are at the Cisco CCNA level and are ready to purchase a CCNA lab but you want to make sure it scales well to your future Cisco CCNP studies, well then look at our Cisco Advanced CCNA/Starter CCNP kits. These were developed to give you the best experience possible from a Cisco CCNA perspective with the understanding that this kit will be used as a seed for you CCNP kit. All of the items in this kit will be able to be utilized in your Cisco CCNP lab so you will not be wasting any money.
As with most things in the world, the more you pay for the kit, the more features you will get to play with in your Cisco lab. These Advanced CCNA/Starter CCNP kits are great if you do not have all the money for a full blown CCNP kit now or if you are 100% sure you will want to continue on to the Cisco CCNP certification. But then again, who doesn’t want to progress in their career?
Common Cisco CCNP Lab Questions
12.4 IOS
12.4 IOS