From: thomas@perrier.name
Date: Tue Mar 20 2007 - 07:32:48 ART
>I found a good deal in E-bay costing $10k which includes around 6 x 3640, 2 x
>3560, 2x 3550, 1 x 26xx Access Server along with cables and ports.
>
>Is it a worthwhile investment?
Looks overpriced to me. My lab cost me EUR 3400, and consists of two 2620, one 2611, two 2610, one 2610XM, one 2611XM, one 2511, one 2522, two 3550, two 2950, lots of serial WICs, and serial and Ethernet cables. The 2500s memory configurations are 16/16, the 2600 64/16, the 2600XM 128/32 (so these ones can run 12.4 advanced enterprise).
However that takes time to look for good deals on routers, then order RAM and WICs, etc. On the other hand, I found it enjoyable to build my own rack!
I initially bought it for the two-3550s lab version. When Cisco added the 3560s, I decided buying two wasn't worth the cost, and opted for two 2950 (a C and a T) in order to be able to practice more L2 stuff. For the few 3560 features my lab doesn't support (private VLANs, different QoS, etc.), I use 3750s at work.
There's nothing I encountered in my first try last week that I hadn't been able to practice (I still failed with ~75 % of points, so close :(.
-Thomas
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