Many admins spend a great deal of money on management software for the sole reason of getting config backups on a regular basis from their Cisco IOS devices. With this simple setup, you can automate this directly from your device. You can send the config to any number of destinations. (more…)
Many of late are using GNS3 to simulate their lab. But many others are still using hardware the ole fashion’d way. A big part of getting a good lab setup is simulating the infrastructure. In most of the IE tracks, having a frame-relay network in place for simulating the connections between sites is a must. QOS, FRTS, etc. To do this you will need to have hardware in place to provide this infrastructure.
There are many options here. The easiest way to start is with a router that has several serial interfaces. I suggest a 2522 router as you can pick those up cheap. It has 8 serial ports. Otherwise, a nm capable router (26xx/36xx/etc) with a nm-4a/s or nm-4t is also a good start. (Need larger use a nm-8a/s or nm-8t) The big difference between the “a/s” and “t” version is the speed at which they clock. The “a/s” is limited to 128k connections and the “t” is at 2mb. (more…)