I don't know how wide of an audience this will reach or how fast this thread will sink, but who on here has various labs for personal computing/certifications/educational advancement?

I was looking at building a hypervisor server (either ESXi or Xen) from Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals but nothing jumped out at me and prices will continue to fall so I'll wait on the dedicated SSD raid pricepoint.

Also I would like to get my CCNA and CCNA Security so I am looking at building a home CCNA/CCNP lab.

Other certs on my radar are Sec+, C|EH, CHFI, CISSP, MCITP:EA, MCSE 2012, RHCSE...of course some of these will take longer than others but I anticipate all of them within 2-3 years (sans CISSP) if I keep on the track I'm on.

Does anyone have any home labs that they're rockin? I'm super stoked to get the hyp server and CCNA lab all playing nicely

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Posted by jcole4lsu

The Kwisatz Haderach

Member since Nov 2007

30922 posts

Posted on 11/26/12 at 8:55 pm to cachemoney

have nothing to add other than im interested in the CCNA lab as well.

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Posted by cachemoney

Red Stick

Member since Oct 2010

4632 posts

Posted on 11/26/12 at 8:58 pm to jcole4lsu

Word. I've looked at various builds but haven't finalized on one.

Groupon was running what seems to be a super deal for online training if you want to check it out:
LINK

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Posted by jcole4lsu

The Kwisatz Haderach

Member since Nov 2007

30922 posts

Posted on 11/26/12 at 9:04 pm to cachemoney

oh my boss has a CCNP and several novell certs, hes my "online training"

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Posted by LSUDropout

Member since Oct 2009

2023 posts

Posted on 11/26/12 at 10:49 pm to cachemoney

I have a CCNP switch lab consisting of 2 3560's and 2 2950's. Thy worked out pretty well, but they couldn't do VRRP or GLBP which would have been nice to lab some, but I get enough hands on that none of the lab was really necessary anyway.

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Posted by cachemoney

Red Stick

Member since Oct 2010

4632 posts

Posted on 12/3/12 at 6:12 pm to jcole4lsu

Lucky dawg...I got some Novell certs as well but am eyeing the Cisco side of things soon enough.

LSUDropout did you get your lab from an eBay? Or did you assemble some other way?

I have quarterly cert objectives for my employer so for the time being I'm using my desktop (i7 2600k, 16gb RAM) as my VM farm...torrented VMWare Workstation and am working on my MS/Linux domain structure at the moment. I will probably build a hypervisor server in the next few months but with 32gb RAM and a physical CCNA/CCNP lab would be nice instead of packet tracer.

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Posted by LSUDropout

Member since Oct 2009

2023 posts

Posted on 12/3/12 at 8:44 pm to cachemoney

All of my gear was purchased off of eBay.

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Posted by Hulkklogan

Baton Rouge, LA

Member since Oct 2010

43299 posts

Posted on 12/3/12 at 8:50 pm to cachemoney

I'd love a CCNA lab. Our network admins are supposed to be putting together a CCNA/CCNP lab for any employee who wants to certify to use.

I have my CCENT right now, working towards CCNA.

This post was edited on 12/3/12 at 8:51 pm

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Posted by LSUDropout

Member since Oct 2009

2023 posts

Posted on 12/3/12 at 8:55 pm to cachemoney

For any router labs I'd recommend GNS3, but for switching labs still kind of need physical hardware.

CCNA, CCNA Wireless, CCNP SWITCH. Planning for my CCNP ROUTE. Don't anticipate too many issues with it as a handle that type of stuff on a daily basis, but I'm trying to spread the exams out a little bit for cert renewal reasons...

This post was edited on 12/3/12 at 8:58 pm

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