CCNP Self-Study: Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI) Second Edition Paquet & Teare ISBN: 1-58705-146-x

CCNP Practical Studies: Routing Henry Benjamin ISBN: 1-58720-054-6

The 1st book has an entire lab that can be made up of primarily 2503's or 2520 routers with only the requirement of a 2522 or 2620/21 with an NM 8A/S

The routers only require 12.3 Enterprise for everything except IPv6 which requires you to drop back to a Service Provider image.

The 2nd book requires 2520's or 2600's as you need routers with at least 3 Serial Interfaces

For Routing, most if not all functionality is supported by the older IOS's which will run on the older 2500 series routers just fine for a lab environment.

I think Wendell has overlooked the 2520's especially, since they come with 4 serial ports and are extremely cheap on Ebay for a 4 serial port router. A wic card for a 2600 cost more than your typical 2500.

If there are any purely routing based labs that cannot be done at the CCNP level with the appropriate IOS on 2503/2520 hardware, then I am not aware of them, but the 2 books I have listed above certainly seem to indicate that it is possible, although I could be wrong, since I'm not a Jeff Doyle. :)

The main problem I've seen with Cisco labs is having appropriate equipment for MPLS & Voice with the only viable economical option I've found so far is the 3640 which Wendall has already outlined as one of the best options so far.

Even the 2600XM's don't do MPLS, and on balance from what I have seen on Ebay, a 2600XM fully kitted out is not really cheaper than a 3640 with full flash/ram + a suitable NM for connectivity to the rest of your lab rack, and even if 2600XM's are cheaper, you still can't do MPLS!

The good news as far as I'm aware is in the switching area, you can pretty much still get away with 2-3 x 3550's and 2-3 2950T's which should be sufficient to take you all the way through to CCIE Routing & Switching for at least the switching component of the labs, at least that is my understanding.

Anything above and beyond what can be done on 3640’s ends up requiring 2800’s or 7000’s at which point Dynagen/Dynamips is the only really economical option.

A Cisco 877W is not too bad, since you can use it as your own home ADSL2+ router, which you can stick in what is effectively a production network connected to the Internet, which can run the latest IOS, will get you through the ADSL & VPN sections of the ISCW course & through the Wireless sections of the BCMSN.

And finally, the piece of equipment you absolutely must have is a Cisco 2511 Terminal Server. If you have more than 3 pieces of equipment, you are going to go crazy without it! :)