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I looked last night on ebay - there are a few 4000/4100's going for about $250.00 each (about $125 pounds or so - not sure exactly due to the shifting exchange rates).

Better hurry - after I detail the differences -  the invisible hand of the free market will be fully at play.

As for the 4402-12, a friend looked them up and they go for about $2500.00 or so each.

I've been provisioning my own lab for a while (over 10+ years now) in the last 10 years I've used paypal and that's where I got the number.  Don't tell my wife. 

Seriously - had I not re-financed the house once - I literally could have paid for the house, the new car, and be living debt free aside from property taxes, utilities, gas, and food right now.

Hindsight is 20/20.

I don't regret the home lab and library.  It gets me where I'm going.

Hey Darby, Reagrding what to do after compromising a network, I haven't got into that yet either. I'm not looking to do a lot of that, or any on networks that aren't mine. It's easy to get distracted with all this stuff too. I just started doing the wireless studies a couple of months ago because it interests me, and I now have some time. At work, wireless is a very small part of what I deal with, so I don't have the bonus of working with it all day. I used to have that situation with Cisco equipment, did my CCNA and started towards CCNP before changing roles at work. I should have kept going with it, I need to renew CCNA again. I'm now working on CWNA, then thinking CWSP. After that, go back to the Cisco side to work towards some of their wireless certifications. CISSP is also out there as a longer term goal.........

Someone needs to build a complete network and allow users to pay a monthly fee to log into it and "play". That would help all the ones that can't afford it for their home nbetwork and who's company doesn't have the latest.

Could be a good business model?!?!?

I know that may sound like a good business model but it does cost a little bit to afford a decent lab to emulate a real production network.

With that said:

I've had the concept of what I call "Arcade" for several years now. It just has not always been feasible till recently:

1. Dynamips for a Virtual Routed Environment.

2. PEMU for a virtual Firewalled Environment.

3. NAC can be virtualized using VMWare.

4. The Server Farm (mostly anything) can be virtualized using VMWare.

5. The VoIP Network can mostly be virtualized (some exceptions fall back to Dynamips and a real PSTN simulator for an Analog Gateway can be reached via the Dynamips Routers or real switches).

6. Real Switches - Core/Distribution/Access Layers

7. WLC Switches can be made accessible via real switches.

Umm.... aside from the SAN environment, what is left?

By the way, what I have just described is not some fantasy but is actually what I'm working on in my own home network:

[url=http://darbyslogs.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-labs-of-internet-shane-edelman.html]Super Racks of the Internet - Mine is the last set of 6 Racks shown (2 more on the way)[/url]

[url=http://darbyslogs.blogspot.com/2010/02/2008-pics-ccm-and-ccme-with-rs-lab-in.html]Old Racks with CCM/CCME[/url]

[url=http://darbyslogs.blogspot.com/2010/02/old-pics-of-network-operations-center.html]Old Network Operations Center Room[/url]

I have 4 Google Appliances (Rebranded Dell 2950s) with Quad Zeon Processors, 12GB RAM (each) and 1 TB RAID-5 (each) - all connected to an SGI FC JBOD with 5.6TB Hard Disk Capacity SAN (Cisco) that is redundant with dual FC paths from each server.

This houses the server farm and all virtual servers mentioned above.

This will also be used to house not one but a few dynamips virtual environments.

I have physical switches (6 capable of L3 are shown in the pics) for Core/Distribution/Access Layers

I have my own Service Provider Network and my own Telco Plant with various capability (both physical and virtual).

I have my own CO (Adtran) - yep it's the real thing. I use an ISDN Simulator for ISDN but technically I could remove my V.35 interfaces and insert BRI interfaces - It already has enough PRI interfaces.

Of course I have enough real firewalls, load balancers, vpn concentrators, routers, and switches (even WLC's) to comfortably emulate mostly any Fortune 500, their business partners, co-lo's, satellites, and home users with this lab.

Does this fit the bill?

In computer networking, hacking is any technical effort to manipulate the normal behavior of network connections and connected systems.

Not to be confused with its cousin the N1 Vision, the Belkin N1 Wireless Router supports 802.11n ("Wireless N") networking. Besides supplying a performance boost over older 802.11g routers, the Belkin N1 offers several features to simplify home network setup as well as some higher-end capabilities often needed on business networks. The stylish design of this unit appeals to many of its owners.

The Spykee Wi-Fi (Spy) Robot - Not Your Dad's Erector Set
| Commentary | Making the rounds this year at prestigious venues like CES 2008 and the 2008 London Toy Fair is the unveiling of a toy robot family named Spykee. Children growing up in the U.S. have had the concept Erector set toys for decades, but Spykee takes the concept to another level (a somewhat scary level).

The Spykee family of robots can network with computers and cell phones via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. You remote control the devices through the network connection. A Spykee can take photos or digital videos and transmit them over these wireless networks to receiving devices, similar to the function of a wireless Internet video camera. If the idea of talking to a toy doesn't bother you, you can also configure some Spykee's to work as VoIP phones, because they both accept voice input and can boom out audio through a loudspeaker.

Let us all hope: (1) these things don't work in bathrooms and (2) a next-door neighbor won't be able to take control of one by hacking into the home network.

Many folks setting up wireless home networks rush through the job to get their Internet connectivity working as quickly as possible. That's totally understandable. It's also quite risky as numerous security problems can result. Today's Wi-Fi networking products don't always help the situation as configuring their security features can be time-consuming and non-intuitive. The recommendations below summarize the steps you should take to improve the security of your home wireless network.
1. Change Default Administrator Passwords (and Usernames)
At the core of most Wi-Fi home networks is an access point or router. To set up these pieces of equipment, manufacturers provide Web pages that allow owners to enter their network address and account information. These Web tools are protected with a login screen (username and password) so that only the rightful owner can do this. However, for any given piece of equipment, the logins provided are simple and very well-known to hackers on the Internet. Change these settings immediately.
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