I’ve ordered all of the components for my CCIE rack. Here is what it will consist of:
- (4) 3550′s
- (3) 2611xm’s
- (3) 3640′s (instead of 1841′s)
- (1) 2522 (Frame switch)
- (3) 2501′s (BB routers)
- (1) 2511 (Terminal server)
If you’re familiar with Internetworkexpert’s topology, you’ll probably notice that you only really “need” two BB routers (the 2501′s). I purchased an extra simply as a backup, so I could expand the topology a little bit and have a wildcard in there if I chose to experiment a little more. All of the gear is going in a 24U rack, and I estimate I’ll have about 20U’s occupied with the gear above (plus PDU’s, and possibly a shelf).
Anyway, can’t wait for it to all arrive. In the meantime I have a lot of cleaning to do, and will be reorganizing my computer desk-area (which is no small feat!). I will post pics as the gear comes in!
hello sir,
how much did it cost to acquire each 3550 switches
ilorah: I payed $275 per 3550, however with shipping, it comes to a little bit more.
Any reason you decided to buy gear rather than use GNS3?
Well, I was a huge proponent of dynamips/dynagen for a long time. When I made the switch from Windows to Ubuntu linux on my desktop, that changed. I encountered all kinds of bugs and issues getting dynagen to work properly. I finally got it to work right, then an upgrade from Ubuntu 8.10 to 9.04 killed dynamips. I had to downgrade my entire OS back to the old version, by wiping my install (after backing my data up of course), and reinstalling. What a pain!
Essentially, I found that I found more time tinkering with my Ubuntu install and dynamips, than I did actually labbing. I actually found I didn’t have this problem when using Windows, but overall, I prefer Ubuntu on a day-to-day basis. In my case, it seemed getting real equipment would make more efficient use of my study time..which is important for someone like me- who has a family and limited study time!