From: Mark Lasarko (mlasarko@co.ba.md.us)
Date: Thu Oct 19 2006 - 21:14:44 ART
All,
I just wanted to say that the first few real labs I ever did included a chain of five switches. I still keep a similar setup for some of my team and desktop support staff whom are heavily involved in switching, or wish to become so. There are no routers in this rack, just L2 toys :) It is a bit more elaborate these days in regards to the hardware, but this is (still) CCNA/CCNP track material here. I can't imagine a CCIE candidate who has not spent time with 4 (or more) switches trying to break stuff???
I tried to joke a bit in response to this in a previous post, but honestly they could throw a 5500 in the mix and I would welcome it. Why? because this journey has as much to do with experience and being able to make sense of what would seem otherwise...
Indeed, there are some new features on the horizon, but not many that do not exist on the (other | additional) rack gear you'll see on lab day if you have the basics down cold.
Furthermore, I know of at least two vendors who consistently use examples of more than two switches, and have so for many years. It goes back to understanding.
This may be the furthest I have ever gone out of my way to overstate the obvious, but when conjecture, speculation, and "odds" defy the very logic we need, it is time to go back to the basics.
R&S or S&W - does it matter which comes first?
Let us embrace this and not let it throw us for a loop.
(no pun intended)
I hope the proctors are enjoying our banter :)
Peace out y'all.
~M
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Wed Nov 01 2006 - 07:29:06 ART