Training and Certification

Hi All,

 

Just need some advice on buying Juniper Gear for my Home Lab.

 

Where would you buy these equipment? Do you use the channel/reseller/VAR etc to get the gear? If so, are there any discounts for HomeLab Equipment?

 

Are there any cheaper options out there, yet Legit stuff?

 

What options do I have? Bare in Mind that I come from East Africa (Kenya).

 

Would want to have a couple of SRX100's or SRX210's then plus 2 EX4200's. Intending to have this set serve me for ENT and SEC tracks.

 

Looking forward to your reponses.

Thats a good question. I need to set up a home lab as well so was wondering the samething.. Also, anyone know where we can get practice labs from?

SRX100's are perfect for home lab since they have the ability to do switching (limited, but still quite a bit). Personally, I'd try to get a few SRX100H's and a couple EX2200's off ebay or just work with a Juniper reseller to get your hands on them. As far as sample labs, I'd go through this forum, there should be some sample somewhere. Also this forum is also a great resource for sample labs and such: http://www.techexams.net/forums/juniper-certifications/

 

Between the 100's and 2200's you're in pretty good shape for the JNCP exams, the only major thing I can think of you're lacking is Virtual Chassis which shouldn't be too big of a deal if you have access to some equipment at work.

 

Also, plan B can also be Junosphere 🙂

 

Teren

JNCIE-ENT #302

Hi Teren,

 

Many thanks for your reply. I will see the E-Bay option but worried about shipping into Africa. It's not a quite common thing here, but will find out with bidder.  Any way I can avoid buying a knock-off on E-Bay ? How do I certify as Legit? As I said, it's not a common here, but I would want to give it a shot.

 

Not sure VAR would allow me to take advantage of the NFR program, under their name.

 

Regards,

Willys Wendoh

Sombody else may be better to chime in but as long as you buy a SRX100,210,220 etc, I would expect it to be ok. You could also ask for the serial number prior to bidding just to verify it's legit. Obviously your best bet is to buy from a Juniper Reseller but you'll more than likely pay more for it.

This is certainly an interesting topic.

 

how would srx100's (200...600) go with exams that are based on 14.1 Junos? My understanding is that srx100's (and similar devices) only go to early v12.

 

Many thanks,

Matt

Hi there Matt,

 

I've looked at the blueprints from the Security track and all of the certifications are based on the 12.1X47 release of Junos. The Enterprise track is based on 12.3 for the EX platform and 12.1 for the SRX.

 

The Service Provider track is indeed on the 14.1 release of Junos. For the vast majority of topics, there will be functional differences between the latest version of Junos on the SRX and 14.1 on the MX platform. OSPF, IS-IS, BGP etc will work the same. There may be very small elements that you are not able to replicate, but Junossphere labs, or rack rentals are available for specific corner-cases.

 

I would see how you go with a few SRX (or vSRX) or even the vMX.

 

I hope this is of help,

Graham

Hi Graham,

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

vMX's would be the best choice, but getting them are a different story. Purchasing vMX's simply isn't an option given how expensive they are. Do you know of an alternatives? Actually, what I'm trying to find out is if I were to purchase the 100M vMX, does it allow me to install it on several machines to build a lab?

 

Many thanks,

Matt

Hi Matt

If you buy the 100M then that is licensed for one instance of vMX, but you can use logical systems to create multiple virtual vMX. Also bear in mind you can use vSRX or vMX without a license for a period of time

Matt

Hi Matt,

 

Thanks for that.

 

It seems I have a little more reading to do with it yet. I'm really liking the idea of buying 2 100M vMX's but am getting mixed information about whether the 100M's are full featured or not.

 

I'm not keen to run logical systems, and also not keen to run the 1Mb/s 30 day trial version either.

 

Many thanks!

Matt

 

 

Hi,

 

Sorry for the delayed response! The 100MB vMX are full features (premium features) just limited to 128 RIB/FIB and a total of 50 VPN instances (either L2 or L3VPN)