Best equipment for CCNP R&S in terms of quality?

[joshua94nl]

Hello everyone!

I am planning on doing CCNP R&S after I finish my curreny CCNA R&S. I currently attend a local college that provides me the CCNA course through the Cisco Networking Academy. I am interesting in getting my own physical home lab because I want real life experience and am tired of simulators. Going through the NetAcad documentation on CCNP lab equipment I came up with this list of hardware that is advised for the NetAcad CCNP course:
- 4x CISCO1941-SEC/K9
- 2x WS-C3650-24TS-E
- 2x WS-C2960+24TC-L

What are your objective and professional opinions on this list? Should I try to get these pieces for a good price or are there cheaper alternatives that are able to do exactly the same? Money is not a huge issue, as long as it does not get above the €1500-2000 level. Note that I am going to do CCNP V2, so what was appropriate three years ago might not be today or next year. Also, advice on where best to buy for European customers is greatly appreciated! :)

[Zach S]

For CCNP ROUTE, all you really need is GNS3, and you get most of SWITCH done with the two 3650's you have mentioned. As far as TSHOOT goes, your shopping list would be more than enough. Most of the scenarios that you'll need to simulate can be done with two routers and three switches.

OSPF, BGP, VLANs, etc.. have been around for a while, so the older equipment is just fine; this does apply to the newest version of the tests. Guessing by your username, check out ebay.nl, look for older equipment running the newest IOS revision.

That all being said, your shopping list will suite you fine, if that's what you are aiming for; once you start getting into the Data Center track or Collaboration that's when you need the newer equipment to support the most modern features.

 

[rosaho]

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