Hardware needed to study CCNA

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I know this has probably been asked a few times but couldn't see anything posted recently. I'm looking to fill in a huge gap in my knowledge (Mainly Networking Hardware) and want to start to study for my CCNA. I've looked on Ebay for kits. Can anyone recommend a seller and/or kit or a rough idea of what I need that includes everything I need to do my CCNA. Am I right in thinking it's 2x router and 2 x switches for CCNA?

Any help much appreciated

 

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I'd recommend 3 of each if you can as you can increase the complexity.

26xx series routers (2621XM are best) are really the minimum and up to 1841s which aren't badly priced at the moment.

2950s are sufficient switch wise, if you plan to go on furthere than a 3550 wouldn't be a bad investment.

You can ofcourse supplement those will GNS3.

 

Cheers for the pointers, much appreciated. Now to find a good seller on Ebay.

 

I have the following kit which was bought from the members market on the OCUK forums and never used it. I passed the CCENT for work and then job went in a different direction so its no longer needed. These are obviously in a used but working conditions. I briefly logged onto each to check they were working, other than that they were never used. One of the routers front covers has come off due to the last courier (clips broke but I still have the front cover and even the small pieces).

2 x 2950 Switches
1 x 2620 Router (with 2x 2T Serial Wics)
1 x 2610XM Router (with 2x 2T Serial Wics)

Extras
Rollover Cables x4 / Serial Cables x2 / WIC Slot Covers x4 / DB9 Adaptors x2

Currently in an Adam Hall Rack Stand 12 U rack which i will include.

I need the space so £100 collected from Hitchin area or can meet up. Newcastle might be a bit too far to come though

 

Two routers are the bare minimum to see if anything works. If you have a very limited budget, you can receive value from only purchasing a single router over working with a simulator. However, you will not be able to see the main thing you are trying to accomplish; the propagation of route tables and the routing of data! The only way you can see if your configurations really work is to have at least two routers. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you purchase at least a dual router kit. But if you want the best experience, you will want to go with a three router kit. So let's review this in a little more detail of what each scenario will provide to you.

One router will give you the ability to run the commands on it and will allow you to memorize the correct syntax and context in which to run the commands.
Two routers will allow you to be able to see route table information propagate, data propagation and path election. In addition, you will see basic device elections.
Three or more routers and you will get all of the above, more complex topologies and full device elections.

In laymans terms, you won't be able to really influence OSPF priority and resulting elections with two routers to see how another router would impact the environment. What I mean by that is if you simply lower the priority of one router to 0, ok it will not be designated but if you have three routers you still have two other routers that can fight it out. So in a real production environment many times it is multiple changes you have to make to really see how it works.

The same goes for the switches. If you would have asked me this question 5 year ago I would have replied the exam is 80% routing and you can memorize the little bit of switching that is on the exam. But with the recent 200-120 changes, inter-vlan routing is hit very heavy on the exam in various scenario questions. So if you can afford it, yes, switches are required. With only a small margin of error between passing and failing, not fully understanding switching concepts such as VLANs, STP, and root elections could be the one question that stands between you passing and failing your exam. There will be some switch questions which are memorization based such as "What is a Layer 2 protocol used to maintain a loop-free network"? Thank goodness you memorized STP. That said, it would be nice for us to be able to actually see the switching concepts work.

So similar to the router review, this is what you will get with the corresponding number of switches.
One switch will give you the ability to run the commands on the switch and allow you to memorize the correct syntax and context in which to run the commands. It will also allow you to do some of the VLAN labs.
Two switches will allow you to see VTP Domain & VLAN information propagate. In addition, you will see basic device elections.
Three or more switches you will get all of the above and full device elections.

So in pratical terms what does that mean? Well, think about if you have multiple paths to the root bridge. Again, you can only see how stuff like that really works effectively with 3 switches(some might say that you can vlan the switch which is technically correct, but for the new student that is not really the way to go in my opinion. Spend the extra $35 and get teh extra switch).

So in conclusion, think about it this way...$295 for the exam...skimp out on a 3rd witch and a 3rd router and you save about $150 at most. Fail the exam by a question as you did not really understand some of the concepts....and then have to retake the exam at another $295...I rather invest the few extra bucks into my learning experience. That would be my 2 cents. I hope it helps.

 

Hi,

I am also looking to start my cccent/ccna with going on to :security and was also looking for a bit of help with hardware.

Didn't want to spam to the board with hardware for threads, but can start my own if the op or admin want

I have access to

4 x catalyst 2960 switches
1 x cisco 2811 router with 128mb card

Now I was looking to go the 3 and 3 route and was wondering if I would be better buying 2 more 2811 routers(64mb cards) or 2 x 1841 routers, the price difference is about £5 more for each 2811.

Thanks

Jim