Original subtitles

>> So your arm is kind of tingling, so you decide to go to the doctor's,

and you sit down with the doctor and explain, "Yeah, my right arm,

it's just kind of tingles weird sometimes."

And he's like, "Oh, well, afraid that's 'tingle-it is'; we're going to have to go in

and do, I mean, we've got to remove the dumaflache that's causing all of this."

And you're like, "Wow, I didn't realize it was so serious.

So, wow, so this is like surgery."

And he's like, "Oh yeah, oh yeah.

But it's outpatient, don't worry."

And you're like, "Well, how many times have you done this surgery?"

He's like, "Well, actually, I haven't, but I know I totally can because I saw a video

on it, and the explanation was great.

I totally get it and I'm ready to go.

So, how about you?"

[Laugh] Ehh!

I was like, "How about 'no' on that whole situation?"

But, you get the point, right?

When you're studying for Cisco, going through the CBT Nugget series is huge.

You now have the information that you need to be successful

at CCNA, as well as a career in Cisco.

But, until you actually do it, there's always going to be

that little gap between knowing it and doing it.

So let me hit this first question head-on.

Why build a lab?

Doesn't GNS3 work just fine?

GNS3 being the Cisco emulator, runs the real iOS, so you can type in all the commands.

It is a phenomenal product, GNS3.

We even have a full series on it at CBT Nuggets because it's that popular.

But I've been where you are.

I've been at the point where, you know, "I'm just getting into CCNA.

I haven't really seen that much Cisco equipment.

I haven't been in that many networks before, to where I've seen it all,

done it all, kind feel behind it."

And if I were given an emulator, I know I would have been just like, eh,

just kind of drag some routers and like, eh.

Like, it just wouldn't have been real to me.

I guess the best way I can explain it just popped in my head.

Have you ever played paintball before?

You know, where you're running around and you shoot the guns,

and you get hit with the paintballs.

Well, paintball, it's like of like, you don't want to get hit,

because it's going to leave a mark.

I mean, you're like diving behind rocks because it you get shot, it really hurts.

Well, compare that to laser tag.

Have you ever done paintball and then you go do laser tag?

Lame! You just wear this vest and people like, point these little laser guns at you.

It's like, "Hello, I..."

There's no fear.

You're not running, you're just like, "Oh, you hit me for the 80th time,

oh well," you know, it's all funny.

So that's kind of like GNS3, at least when you start off.

I'm not talking for once you've had a lot of experience and just want

to start using this as kind of a virtual lab.

But when you start off, it's kind of like laser tag, where it's like, eh,

it's just kind of frilly, oh well.

So, build a lab.

Just trust me on this.

I could go on but I don't want to bore you with all of my reasons why.

Build a lab.

So, next recommendation.

Cisco shopper, what's my budget?

Once you get into building a lab, it is addictive.

I mean, to where I've actually had students that, I'm like, "Hey, go build a lab."

And they come back and they show me pictures of, I mean, literally thousands

of dollars they spent, building this enterprise-size network.

I'm like, "Oh, my word.

No, that's not what I meant."

I would say the budget for a CCNA lab, you know, if you're really, really savvy, 50 bucks.

Maybe if you just want to get some stuff quick,

and maybe you want some nicer stuff, you know, around 200 dollars.

I don't think you should go much more than that, because I would say you're probably over-buying.

Or if you do, maybe you're just doing it for fun to kind of build a collection of equipment.

So, know your budget, because it is addictive.

Because you'll find some great deals on eBay for this equipment.

So now let me give you my equipment recommendations.

Now, keep in mind, when I put this list together,

I did so with budget as my primary concern.

So, this is being as cost-conscious as I can.

My number one recommendation, and it has been for, I would say, probably five, six years,

is this little Cisco 871W router.

Now, first off, let me also mention I kind of have my single router.

This is the ultimate budget department, to where I'm like,

"If all you can afford is one router, grab one of these guys.

Just grab one from eBay to use."

Now, over on the right hand side I say, "Okay, well if we've got a little larger budget,

let me explain how to build a min-lab for the CCNA."

So, if you can only buy one router, I would say go for the Cisco 871.

The reason why I love this router is, number one, it's small.

I know a lot of you will be running this in your house.

Getting one of these routers is great, but you've got the fan noise, it's going to go errr,

and you're going to be anxious to turn that thing off as fast as you can.

This is small, it's very, it's completely silent, and it has the full iOS.

It actually has a built in switch, so you can learn a little bit

about VLANs, a little bit about switching.

Because you can do VLANs on this guy.

You even have, if you go with the, there's an 871 and there's an 871W.

W is the wireless version.

So if you want to learn a little bit about doing Wi-Fi, even though the configuration

of Wi-Fi is not part of the CCNA, you can just by doing this.

So I look at this guy and I'm like, "Man, what a great little all-in-one box,

to where I can do NAT, I can do my Access lists, I can do VLANs, I can do, you know,

I think it's a little four-port switch they have in there, I can do wireless."

It's everything, I love it.

So, next one down, if that one's not an option, go for --

and by the way, this I would probably say is probably going tbo be the most expensive one

out of the list.

I haven't even checked prices.

Check eay, please, maybe $50, 40?

Not crazy expensive, just more than these.

I mean, these I'm guessing, you can grab for 20 bucks or so.

Cisco 1721, again, my main focus with this guy is it's small and it's quiet.

My goal for you, when you build this home lab,

it that you route your internet connection over it.

And if you get one of these real beefy routers,

these are the full rack-mount routers right here, you always have the fan, "zzzzzz,"

in the background, and you're going to be like, "Ah, I'm ready to turn that thing off."

And that, because I know, I've run a lab in my house for a long time.

So, this one is completely silent.

You will have to, the warning I'll give you is, it only comes with one fast Ethernet card.

So you'll have to buy, they actually make a,

I think it's WIC-1ENET, I think is the model number.

So that'll add the second Ethernet interface.

But all of these are great, and the extra benefit of these is it's modular.

This one, the one shortcoming that I will say,

on the 871 is it does not have serial ports, and you can't add them.

It's not meant for serial connections, whereas when you get over here,

this guy does support serial interfaces, so you can do your frame relay testing.

You can do point-to-point LAN links, all of those kind of things can be done.

And then of course, down at the bottom, 2611, 2621.

The reason I chose those model numbers is, 11 is 10-megabit per second, dual Ethernet ports.

This one is 100-megabit per second and dual Ethernet ports.

Again, the dual Ethernet, that's these guys -- one, two --

are used to route your internet connection.

One outside interface, and one inside interface.

So if you only can get one router, those are the ones to get.

Now, on the right-hand side, I've got the mini-lab.

If I were putting this together, like a fast food order, I would say,

"Grab two of these, and two of these right there."

That's your mini-lab.

This guy down at the bottom, the 3550, is just the most amazing switch because it's dropped

in price significantly, it's 100 megabits per second, which is why,

everything is going gigabit, and everybody's like, "Oh,

we don't' want a hundred meg anymore."

So, you can get these pretty cheap.

The big thing about it is it's a layer three switch.

So this one will take you to the CCNA and beyond, as you start getting into the CCNP,

layer three switching, and doing a lot of stuff there.

So, if you can grab one of those, then replace one of these with it.

So, grab one of these and one of these.

If you can, you know, if budget's an option, grab just two of these instead.

They also have Power over Ethernet models, where you can power IP phones if you want to get

into Voice Over IP, or power wireless access points.

By getting two of these, then you can start doing a lot of the redundancy protocols,

like HSRP, VRRP, GLBP, and setting it up to where you've got kind

of a layer three switched environment.

I'm getting into CCNP; I'm not going to do that.

Bu, okay, so budget conscious, two of these, two of these.

Then you've got your serial interfaces, and I've kind of got the bonus equipment down here.

The beauty of using two of these is they've got hundred meg ports, you can do your VLANs,

you can do your trunc-ing, all of that happening between those two switches.

And, these have 100-meg Ethernet ports.

You want to grab at least one 2621, because these are 10-megabit per second.

That'll let you set up a router on a stick, so you can route between VLANs.

You also want to grab a console cable.

Most of these, if you get them online, will come with one.

Watch out, people on eBay are ferocious and they'll try

and sell you a console cable for like 20 bucks, and don't.

Just say, you know, when you but one of these ask the seller,

a lot of times they'll be businesses, "Hey, can you throw a console cable in?"

Most of the time they'll throw in a couple for you.

So, console cable.

Grab Ethernet cables.

Best place to go for Ethernet cables,

I don't know if I've shown this to you yet, is Monoprice...

Monoprice.com.

Now, I'm saying the best.

I'm sure there's other places to get them, but this place just has really,

really good priced networking and they're in California, which is right next to me.

So they do overnight shipping for nothing.

But if you go to like Fry's Electronics or Best Buy to get, you know, scroll down here to,

a three-foot cable, they're going to charge you seven bucks for the package and all.

Come on; get it for a dollar.

So, Monoprice is a great place for that.

Oh, by the way, Monoprice also sells, let me see if I can find it, back up, Cisco Serial.

Great, they have Cisco...

uh, that's not what I was looking for.

Um, oh, they're like serial ATA, eh...it's on there.

Somewhere.

It's on there; trust me.

They actually sell Cisco Serial Cables there that you can use.

DB60, I believe, is the model that you're looking for.

60-pin serial cables that you can use for back to back serial connections

between your two routers, that's where you can emulate your frame relay,

or your point-to-point LAN link, and all that.

Last thing I'll say is a lab guide.

Look around, just see if people have created any kind of lab guide,

and you might follow their equipment recommendations.

The reason I say this is because you can set up a lot in your house.

You can route your internet connections, use Access lists, and so on.

But after so long, you kind of run out of ideas, and then these things just sit on a shelf

and every now and then you're like, "Oh, I've got to study."

And you power down, and you change a host name, set the enable secret,

and you're like, "Uh, now what do I do?"

So, having a lab guide is great, because it gives you objectives.

They're like, "Hey, accomplish this, go after that."

Not a step by step, I don't like the step, like "Type this, type this."

You don't learn anything that way.

But just something to give you missions and goals to accomplish.

I actually created a series, part of CBT Nuggets, and got this subscription,

you might check it out, called CCNA for the Real World.

I created a whole bunch of labs in there that you might want to try out

and use yourself, in there as well.

My mind is always going to, "What else can I do?"

I wonder if I can create like a lab guide that I give you, I don't know.

We'll see.

But check out CCNA for the Real World.

I've got some labs in there for you to try out.

The last thing I want to cover is a question I get all the time.

People start going on eBay and shopping for equipment, and they say, "Okay.

I see on there some people are selling a CCNA lab kit,

where they give me all the routers and the switches together."

Matter of fact, I just went to eBay and just typed in CCNA lab real quick, just to see,

and this is what I'm talking about.

They'll ship you like three routers, three switches, for $600, or in this case,

three routers, three switches for $400.

So, you kind of go down this list and you start seeing all these different things.

"So, should I buy one of these CCNA lab kits,

or should just buy the routers you recommended individually?"

Well, it all goes back to cost.

Cost versus hassle.

You're going to get it a lot cheaper if you buy the devices individually.

What the CCNA lab kit people do, it's just people that go out and buy all the things.

They assemble it, take a nice pretty picture, they say,

"Buy it right here, right now all together."

The benefit that you get from that is, number one, you don't have the hassle of dealing

with all these different sellers and, "Did I get my equipment on time?"

and all that kind of stuff.

You've got one place to go back to.

Second, sometimes you can get a pretty sweet deal, where they're saying, "Okay, well,

I'll include a lab guide and all the equipment that you need for that lab."

So again, sets you up for a little more success,

but you're going to pay more for that kind of thing.

If it were me, I would go out and buy the devices individually.

Because I'm a cheapskate.

I like getting the best deal, when I'm like "Sweet!

A switch for $20.

Buy it now!"

It give me that warm fuzzy satisfaction, like I just got a great deal.

So, that being said, that's my advice on those two things.

I hope this has been informative for you, and I'd like to thank you for viewing.