Danie,
I built my home lab entirely from Ebay. There are some good vendors on
there, but the phrase "buyer beware" always comes to mind. I always look at
the sellers feedback, not just for positive ratings but to see if they have
sold equipment in the dollar value I am purchasing. Look to see if the
seller has positive feedback on equipment in that price range. The sellers
I can recommend (based on my own purchases and those of people I personally
know) are:
networkhardwareresale - great packaging, good prices, quick shipment;
bluedesperateboy - good packaging, fair prices (little high, but top notch
equipment); ciscoware; www.whirled-routes.com; magi-tech; snootfull; lskok
If you look up their feedbacks, you will see the amount of business they do.
If you are after good deals, be patient about purchasing and watch for
good products at good-to-fair prices. It took me two months to build my
home lab (Catalyst 5000 w/ Sup 2, 2-2501, 2-2503, 1-2502, 1-2513, 1-4000M,
1-2620, 1-2522, 1-2511RJ, 2-2900 Cat switches, plus all serial/ethernet
cables) for around $9500. All of it from Ebay, and all of it worked when I
received it. Costly yes, but nothing beats continuous hands on experience
with the equipment for months (six so far) on end. Plus, I can configure
almost anything I find in the CCNP and CCIE books I have (save some Token
Ring and ATM of course), which is nice when you have questions about
technologies and want to experiment to learn more about them. Personally, I
will rent rack time to get at the 3900/3920 switches and ATM configurations.
Also, I have not purchased from them, but Optsys.net has some pretty good
deals on 2501 and 2503 router packages. I will be purchasing an ISDN
simulator from them later this month.
As for the Catalyst 5000 switch, you can substitute a Catalyst 2901 or a
Catalyst 2926T (the "T" means 10/100T connections on the supervisor module
versus the 10/100 Fiber connections on the 2926F). Search the archives for
additional information on rack recommendations AND Ebay sellers to steer
clear of as the topic gets brought up at least once a month.
Best of luck to you in your studies.
My apologies to the group for any perceived waste of bandwidth on this often
discussed topic. After reading about it for the past seven months, I just
wanted to drop my $.05 on the table.
Regards,
Justin Cluer
From: "Danie Strydom"
Reply-To: "Danie Strydom"
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: CCIE Starter [7:37283]
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 13:04:08 -0500
Dear All, I've recently started active study on CCIE and have limited
experience but CCNP knowledge on Cisco kit. I'm in the process of buying
what I need and I need some advice on where to start and would like to find
out how you guys started out. What do I need for my home lab? I've looked
at auctions on Ebay, is it alright to buy second-hand? Is there IOS upgrades
available free from Cisco? If any of you know a good link to a specific
equipment list I need I'd be very grateful, I've had a look on the Cisco
Routing and Switching Lab equipment list but they only had the following -
no real specifics:
2500 series routers
2600 series routers
3600 series routers
4000 and 4500 series routers
3900 series token ring switches
Catalyst 5000 series switches
I can only afford up to 3600 series routers, what can I do about the rest?
Thank you for your help and I think this is a great group.
Kind Regards,
Danie Strydom
London, UK
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