It really depends on who you are. Some people will refer to it as a CCNA Lab, others will call it a CCNA Kit and some people will even refer to it as a CCNA Lab Kit. From what I have seen, people selling a prebuilt Cisco Lab Kit usually throw in some sort of additional labs to work through or add a Certification ebook of some kind. Then again, so do a lot of sellers who make prebuilt CCNA Labs. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Here a few suggested tips for finding the right prebuilt Cisco Home Lab.
No matter what they call it, make sure it meets your need to pass the current version of the Cisco Certification you are studying for. Nothing sucks worse than finding out after you start your Cisco Certification test that your home lab did not help you learn everything you need to know to pass the test.
My suggestion is to start with the Cisco Lab pages, then look over the Cisco Kit pages. Compare the two and make sure you are getting the best deal on equipment that you can actually use. In all cases, I suggest you get an IOS of 12.2(25) or higher. I am still running 12.2(25) on part of my network at work. This is really important. Make sure the IOS is installed on the equipment prior to purchasing because unless you have a costly Cisco Smartnet Account, you will not be able to upgrade. It also helps to verify the equipment has enough flash and NVRam to handle the IOS you need.
CCENT Home Lab
Minimum Suggested Equipment
2 x 2600 Routers and 1 x 2950 Switch
If you are going to take the two tests CCNA route, you should focus on getting the equipment to get you through both test. I recommend buying a CCNA Lab, even on the 640-822 ICND1 test.
CCNA Home Lab
Minimum Suggested Equipment
2 x 2600 Routers and 1 x 2950 Switch
Personally, I like having two switches to play with VLAN and Spanning Tree across multiple devices, but for the CCNA, one switch can get you by if money is tight.
CCNP Home Lab
Minimum Suggested Equipment
3 x 2600 Routers or 3600 Routers and 2 x 2950 Switches
Make sure they are using an enterprise IOS. These are usually designated by K9 on the image name. If it says Base, it will work for the CCNA, but with the third CCNP test, 642-895 ISCW, Implementing Secure Cisco Wide Area Networks, you will need the extra security features. Bare in mind that there are some export concerns with certain security features. You will need to verify this information if you live outside the US and are buying your equipment from the United States.
You also might consider picking up a Cisco Aironet Wireless Card and a Cisco Wireless Access Point for 642-812 BCMSN, Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks.
This started out as a quick rundown. It is longer than I expected, but there is a still a lot more to cover. This should get you started for now.
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