Cisco hardware mystifying

[Smartncube]

I work in a server room with 50 plus servers. Amongst these are Cisco routers & switches. There are racks with Cisco Catalysts 6500 series? What are these.How do I get to know about Cisco hardware and how it works how to configure it. What are the initial steps to this. Thanks in advance for you help

 

[ChrisAC]

The catalyst 6500 is a switch. Check

http://www.cisco.com

Chris.


**********************
Chris Andrew, CCNA, CCSA
chris@iproute.co.uk
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[l1carter]

Hi,

Might I suggest looking into the CCNA certification. This will teach you the core areas of network and how it relates to cisco. As for the 6500's in your server room. Those are more than just switches!! They are switches that can act as routers as well. I would suggest working on someting smaller to start off with you would be throwing yourself into the ocean if you started with those bad boys. Kind of like the difference from a palm and a Sparc Enterprise server with 32 core processors! Ok maybe not that dramatic but you get the drift. Anyway if you want some good links to start your cisco life you can check these out..

http://www.cisco.com/go/ccna

for fun once you have read up on some cisco stuff

http://www.routergod.com

 

[Smartncube]

Thanks Guys for the info - Now I know that the catalyst 6500 is a 2 in 1 box. Its a switch that can act as a router. Debugall Routergod.com is great. it's an eye opener.
Is there a way I could learn Router/Switch/Pix commands without going for the certification. My working hours dont allow me to go to college. I have 2 PC's one running Win2000 Professional and the other XP. Is there anything I could add to my setup to learn about the above.

Once again Thanks guys

 

[marvandkelly]

Try Cisco's web-site. It's by far the best site any manufacturer has as far as sharing info on thier technologies. It has tons of router commands (matter of fact all router commands are published there), examples of implimentation and info on the different technologies that they support. Most of the info is vendor specific, but they do a good job at covering vendor neutral standards.

 

[RedCTR]

Go to Boson.com, they are a training site and you can download an evaluation copy of a product that allows you to emulate a Cisco Router.
Get a good grounding in network theory as well, learn about switching, routing, IP addressing etc.
As an overview Cisco switches are called Catalyst, the higher the number after the more expensive! Hence a Cisco 2950 is low end workgroup access switch, whereas as Cisco 6500 a modular core switch.
Cisco routers again start with low numbers and increment, so a Cisco 827 is an ADSL router and a 12008 is a large core router usedd by ISPs. The boson product will give you a feel for the Cisco command set called IOS (standard on routers and most switches)

 

[Smartncube]

Thanks! RedCtr

Boson router simulator is great and there's nothing that beats it. I now feel a lot confident on routing. Unfortunately it's a demo version wont allow me to use it at configuration mode. But what the heck it's a great peice of software and I'm learning a great deal.

Once again Thanks!