It’s actually emulating the router using the real IOS – which you’ll have to get yourself. If you’re a student, or working for a someone with cisco equipment, it should be easy for you to get a legit copy. If you’re studying on your own… Well, I won’t advocate piracy here, but you guys know how the internet works. I’m not going to say any more than that.

It’s not some crappy simulator, but actually the real deal. It behaves almost exactly like a real router would (Except you’ll only be able to get maybe 50KB/s out of it. It would be worthless to try and use as a real router, but for labs, it’s fine)

It can be used for doing pretty much all of the CCNA labs, as well as the BSCI, ONT, and ISCW labs for the CCNP. It will also handle BGP for the CCIP. If you’re after your BCMSN, MPLS, CCIE R&S, etc, exams, you’ll need to go buy a layer 3 switch – 3550 or 3560. The 3550 should be fine for all of the CCNP/IP/etc stuff. The current R&S lab for the CCIE requires some features unique to the 3560, though. But if your main investment is only 1k for your CCIE lab, you’ve come out way ahead.

Anyway, if there’s any interest, I’ll write some info up over the next handful of days, and post the EDU. If people like it, I’ll go more in depth, about how to get the physical 3550 working with the emulated routers, and maybe go over PEMU for doing CCSP stuff.

Note: You will need a fairly good computer for this. Dual or quad core, with a fair amount of ram. 2GB is scraping it. 3gb is better. 4gb is best. CC*A/CC*P stuff should be OK with 2gb, but a CCIE lab setup would roll over and die.

No related posts.