Anyway, I’m getting all of the CAT5 cable made. I’m making it all myself, to save money, and to have the cables at the proper lengths. Nothing annoys me more than seeing a rack with 20 ft of extra CAT5 when that’s not necessary. I kind of understand on serial cables..mine are longer than they need to be also, but let’s at least do a LITTLE cable management people. That being said, there’s gotta be a limit, because if you’re anything like me, you move cables around sometimes, and try new things, which is great. We’re not building a permanent rack here, it’s for training purposes- but using that as a reason to not use cable management is kind of a cop out! That aside, to some extent, I expect CCIE racks to be kind of messy, that’s part of the game..just not overly messy

Back to making the CAT5. I haven’t gotten much studying done since I’ve been busy getting the rack up in order to do IEWB Vol I again. I will surely post more once I make some process whether it be on the rack or my personal studies for the written.

• (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!