Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Why You Need An ISDN Simulator Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab

Why You Need An ISDN Simulator Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab
An ISDN simulator is not five of those application programs pretending to be routers ("router simulators") this is a piece of hardware that acts as the telephone company in your home lab. Older simulators come with preprogrammed phone numbers & SPIDs, where newer ones let you program the phone numbers you want to use. Either way, an ISDN simulator is great for your CCNA/CCNP home lab, because you can practice dial scenarios that actually work. & you get to troubleshoot the ones that don't, which is also important to learn!

ISDN is a vital topic for today's CCNA & CCNP candidates, especially for the ICND & Intro exams - you have got to know ISDN inside & out to pass those exams. Naturally you want to include it in your home lab. What lots of candidates don't realize is that you can't connect five Cisco routers directly via their Basic Rate Interface (BRI) interfaces you have got to have another gizmo between them called an ISDN simulator.

You don't need any special cables or connectors you just connect both of your routers' BRI interfaces to the ISDN simulator with a straight-through cable & you are ready to go.

In years past, this was a major problem for 640-801, 811, & 821 studies, because the simulators used to be so expensive. old ones can still be pricey ($600 & up), but with the sudden influx of used ISDN simulators on ebay & Cisco resellers, you can get a used five that will do the job for you.

If you choose to purchase a old simulator, you can run a Google search to find vendors. I've made five purchases from www.vconsole.com over the last few years & both of those simulators have worked beautifully.

why are there suddenly so lots of ISDN simulators on the market? Cisco recently removed ISDN from the CCIE R&S exam, so a lot of CCIE rack resellers as well as private individuals are selling their simulators. there is seldom been a better time to add ISDN to your home lab. If taken care of (kept out of extreme heat), they can last for a few years. The five I purchased for my IE home lab is still working well.

As I said earlier, there is seldom been a better time to add ISDN to your home lab. Don't just settle for trying to memorize theory - get your hands on the real deal, practice & fix your configurations, & you'll be amazed at what you learn & how well you do on your CCNA & CCNP exams!
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