Best CCNA Lab?

April 19, 2007 by ted.

I’ve noticed that I’m seeing a lot of CCNA lab questions showing up on forums. For the most part, everyone wants to know what hardware they should get, or will this particular router work for CCNA etc, etc. I figured since I’ve been teaching CCNA for over 5 years that I could shed some light on the subject. If you noticed, everyone has their own opinions on which routers/switches are the best to get. I will explain some options along with my personal advice for what you need to pass the current CCNA.

Option 1 – buy the hardware

The budget CCNA lab-

Most people cringe when people suggest using the 2500 series in their CCNA labs. The 2500 series routers have been around for a long time and they were the primary series used for CCNA training (at least back in the day when I started). If money is a concern, you can probably get used 2500 series routers for less then $100. They work fine for probably 90% of CCNA content today—yes, I picked that percentage semi-randomly. On the switch side of things, I strongly recommend going with the 2950 series switches. Do not—I repeat—Do not go with the 1900 series switches. They are mostly CAT-OS-based and not much help for the switching labs.

Here is an equipment breakdown (minimum quantities):

4 x 2514 series routers (2 AUI interfaces)

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