Best place to buy Cisco?

[Lincoln]

I was able to find the 2600 router, but not the 2650 switch, I can find 2650 routers.

In my home network, I am envisioning... two wired connections hooked into a switch, which is hooked into a router offering wireless access, on a separate subnet. The router is hooked into the DSL line. What would you guys suggest for this setup?

Sorry typo.... 2950.

[Barry]

My biggest problem with upgrading to cisco equipment at home is my home network is almost all gigabit. The only devices not gigabit now are the printers, access point and my eee. Gigabit cisco switches are spendy, we just paid $3000 for a 48 port switch at work.

[SephStorm]

As a best practice, you should isolate any lab completely from both 'normal use' network or the Internet. That guarantees that no matter what you do, you cannot cause any problems outside the lab. (e.i. You can't, for example, accidentally DoS you're own PCs, or cause an attack to go to a machine out on the Internet.) This protects you from damaging your regular network, or worse, being accused of doing something malicious to a network belonging to someone else.

Understood, but how do I do that with only one internet connection? This is at home.

And the lab isnt being used for security testing. Yet...

[Lincoln]

Understood, but how do I do that with only one internet connection? This is at home.

And the lab isnt being used for security testing. Yet...

You can make a lab without an internet connection. The devices just need to communicate with each other.

edit: Was searching Google, might want to check this out, http://www.homelabnetwork.com/store/...Cisco-CCNA-Lab

[SephStorm]

My biggest problem with upgrading to cisco equipment at home is my home network is almost all gigabit. The only devices not gigabit now are the printers, access point and my eee. Gigabit cisco switches are spendy, we just paid $3000 for a 48 port switch at work.

Who has gig ethernet at home? Most ISp's dont even offer those speeds to home users do they?

When I was in NC, sprint would offer 10Mb. here i get like 1.5Mb.

[Barry]

Who has gig ethernet at home? Most ISp's dont even offer those speeds to home users do they?

When I was in NC, sprint would offer 10Mb. here i get like 1.5Mb.

I only have 6Mb download, but I run a couple file servers on my wired network. My wife's bookkeeping business runs on this network. The wired and wireless networks are separated at the firewall/router. I know a guy [cough]xor[/cough] with a 20Mb download connection, and it overloads consumer grade equipment. I probably wouldn't have to worry about that as my firewall/router is running on an IBM e series 1U server.

[Jac01]

Check these puppies out!!!

http://www.pixzilla.com/

[SephStorm]

One thing I have to ask, since it hasn't been covered in the program yet, Linksys switches and routers? Is it worth getting one of them for CCENT/CCNA training? I know they are more commercialized products, so I wouldn't think so, but I was looking at one of their switches last night and was wondering if they even have Cisco IOS.

[Thorn]

One thing I have to ask, since it hasn't been covered in the program yet, Linksys switches and routers? Is it worth getting one of them for CCENT/CCNA training? I know they are more commercialized products, so I wouldn't think so, but I was looking at one of their switches last night and was wondering if they even have Cisco IOS.

No, they don't have IOS. Cisco's Linksys brand is the SOHO and small business brand. Originally Linksys was little more than a home/SOHO brand, but since Cisco bought Linksys, the devices have been getting more complicated as well as more robust. Essentially better as small business equipment. Of course, they are also getting more expensive. They seem to be phasing out the Linksys name now, by the way.

All-in-all, they're good stuff for small business, but useless for studying for for certs like the CCNA.

[Lincoln]

Going a tad bit off topic here but I wanted to share my experiences with studying for the CCNA, also the coffee is kicking in. Studying and passing the CCNA is like studying for a test, your goal is passing it (I know this sounds obvious but please read on). I spent many weeks reading and taking practice tests and working with my lab. When I took it a few years ago, it was very technical, and there was about 58 questions and 2 labs. One of the labs was creating an ACL and the other was a multi-question lab that you had to login to different routers and switches and verify the config to answer the questions. The rest were mostly theory based questions and answering key terms. I passed on my first try and I thought I had an overall idea of how to setup and maintain Cisco routers and switches.

I was wrong. I got promoted within and my boss was well aware I had my CCNA, but no business experience managing equipment on a live network. Things are a lot different. My first day a supervisor card in a chassis switch went bad, my boss asked me to replace it and reinstall the same config using the flashdrive. It was only a few lines of code but I felt clueless. Thank god for Google .

I can say now after a couple of years hands on, I have forgotten a lot of those technical key terms and I have a much more solid understanding of what it really goes on in the day to day stuff (this also dependent on what equipment you end up working on). All that being said, it's just a certificate. It's like a diploma, you can get one but doesn't mean you learned anything. These are just my experiences, there are much more well versed people on this forum who can give you better information. Sorry to go off topic but just some thought for when you put your study time into the test.