Routers (& switches) to buy for CISCO Certs - CCNP, CCDP, CC

JohnNews · Guest

Folks:

A few years ago I completed CCNA. Over the next few years I see myself
aggressively pursuing the CCNP, CCDP, and finally the coveted CCIE
certification.

I am currently in the market for a couple of used routers & switches (from
Ebay or elsewhere) to prepare for this challenging certification future.

I am looking for some solid advice on which routers and switches to
purchase. Ideally I would like this equipment to be very useful for many
years into the future since I have my own home network.

Thanks,
John.

Ted Mittelstaedt · Guest

The best bang for the buck for this is the 1600 series routers. You can get
run-from-flash ones dirt cheap, use off-the-shelf SIMMS in them, and
tftp-boot
them from a tftp server so you can run any size IOS image. For example a
couple of 1605's can be had for between $250-$300 used off Ebay. Cisco
is also still producing all flavors of IOS for this router platform.

But as far as using them for "many years in the future" forget that. Cisco
has
figured out that if they keep changing the model lines they make all the
cards
and such used in the older routers obsolete, thus people have to keep buying
new devices. While they haven't gone to the extent that Microsoft has and
announced deliberate dates that they will stop producing the existing stuff,
it's clear that they have such a schedule in use internally.

Ted Mittelstaedt
tedm@toybox.placo.com

"JohnNews" <johncarryl@comcast.net> wrote in message
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