Server/Client with L3 & L2 switches?

Andy White · ‎11-29-2009

Hello,

I'm studying for my CCNA and for my home lab I have 2 switches, a 2950 and 3550, as one is L2 and the other is L3 this will be ok for me to practice the server/client scenarios and populating multiple VLANs across both? Hopefully I don't need to buy any more equipment, well the only issue is how can I also practice STP with these 2 switches?

Jon Marshall · ‎11-29-2009

Whiteford wrote:

Hello,

I'm studying for my CCNA and for my home lab I have 2 switches, a 2950 and 3550, as one is L2 and the other is L3 this will be ok for me to practice the server/client scenarios and populating multiple VLANs across both? Hopefully I don't need to buy any more equipment, well the only issue is how can I also practice STP with these 2 switches?

Yes these should be good enough for CCNA. You can definitely test multiple vlan scenarios using VTP etc. STP can also be tested, you just need to make 2 separate connections between the switches ie. not an etherchannel, and one of the links will have to block.

The only thing you can't really do is exchange routing information between them so if you get a chance to get hold of a router, any router, that would help.

Jon

Andy White · ‎11-29-2009

Thanks for finding the time to answer.

I do have 3 old routers:

2 x Cisco 2620's with 2 WIC T1 serial cards

1 x Cisco 1721 with 2 WIC T1 serials cards

What scenario were you thinking? They only have 1 Ethernet port each, I've prctice the router on a stick scenario with the 2950 which works nice.

Thanks

Jon Marshall · ‎11-29-2009

Whiteford wrote:

Thanks for finding the time to answer.

I do have 3 old routers:

2 x Cisco 2620's with 2 WIC T1 serial cards

1 x Cisco 1721 with 2 WIC T1 serials cards

What scenario were you thinking? They only have 1 Ethernet port each, I've prctice the router on a stick scenario with the 2950 which works nice.

Thanks

Even if they have only one ethernet port you can still connect them up to the 3550, run EIGRP or OSPF between the 2 devices and create loopback interfaces on your 2600 routers and advertise these into the routing protocol. That way you can see routes being exchanged, debug the routing protocol updates etc..

Also don't forget the extended ping command on Cisco routers ie. you can ping a device connected to one of your switches with a source IP of one of the 2600 loopbacks and this will test out your routing for you.

Jon