Cisco chap starting on his Extreme journey

[gonzoessex]

Hello all,

I'm a Cisco chap with a CCNP in Routing and Switching (x2) and CCNA in Wireless, but a network guy at heart regardless of the vendor.

I may be joining a team who mainly use Extreme and I need to get some hands on training and have a few questions from you pros.

I've managed to get a switch (EXOS) working in GNS3 to have a play and the version is on 30.1.x.x and 22.6.x.x I have managed to trunk the Extreme switch to a Cisco one and ping across.

1. I need some Extreme router practice, are these available in GNS3?
2. I think the switches use EXOS, what do the routers use?
3. Can you recommend an tutorial/labs sites or videos?
4. I want to get the ECNA (CCNA equiv), do I need to take their course or can I self study and take the exam?
5. The language from Cisco to Extreme is very different at the moment and tips on how you converted over?

Anything else you can add will be really appreciated and take some stress off me 🙂

Thanks

[gonzoessex]

I forgot - so you don't need to take one of their course to take the exam like VMware do? I self studied Cisco and bought the exams myself and passed. My own pace.....

[gonzoessex]

Thanks guys.

I will start of slow and go from there, L2 does seem to be their strength. GNS3 is great now as I can play with EXOS.

1. So is EXOS used for just the switches and SLX for routers?
2. Like Cisco can EXOS (switches?) be used as routers to learn L3?
3. IS SLX available in GNS3 to learn?
4. How did you learn, was it by buying some kit or GNS3?

Thanks

[EtherMAN]

I have converted many Cisco techs and NOC employees over to EXOS through the years and here are some of my observations.

First EXOS very standardized and their cli is more single line driven and not a tree. Tab is your friend.

On the EXOS platform the layer 3 routing functions are a bit tricky to get used to the differences and lack some router features you have grown to love/hate if you have been using bigger core type Cisco routers and have routers everywhere as is the Cisco way.

Forget about trying to make everything routed. Their strength is layer 2 and building big fat fast layer 2 connections between switches so spend some time understanding how to build layer two networks using switches with more centralized core routers.

Stay active on the HUB as you grow... We will guide you and help you along your journey. Down load the proof and concepts guide and spend some time looking at the examples and capabilities of EXOS.

Much simpler images for upgrades and configuration management having two separate buckets for each so you have built in roll back at image and configuration level.

Good luck and welcome

[Tomasz]

Hello gonzoessex,

Nice to hear and welcome!

1. If you mean routing by general, it's on either EXOS or VSP or ERS or VDX or SLX products, if you mean strictly routers ('ExtremeRouting'), those are two SLX devices right now. I've heard about virtual SLX but didn't use that yet.
2. SLX routers use SLX OS, you might wish to bookmark this page for any HW/SW documentation: https://www.extremenetworks.com/support/documentation/
3. Do you have some exact list of features or scenarios you want to try out? Regarding EXOS, the User Guide itself is a nice tutorial on how do things work and how to configure them, I've also seen @Martin Flammia's blog that helped me once: http://www.extremenetworks.guru/. You can also try to ask your regional reseller/distributor/Extreme representatives to seek for any workshops and demos hosted by them.
4. Basic knowledge you can earn on your own (with docs and community support). If you want to get certified with EXOS, I'd recommend ECS - Campus EXOS Switching & Routing instead. At the moment most of ECNA content is within that ECS class (you can compare agendas here: https://www.extremenetworks.com/education/courses/). It should possible to do self-study and take the exam theoretically, you might also ask learn@extremenetworks.com to make sure. I'm not confident about buying the course materials off the training, it would rather be agenda-based list of takeaways.
5. Waiting for others' approaches to be posted, IMO there is often no way for strict translation line by line, rather could be block by block (sometimes few commands in Cisco can be a single command in EXOS and vice versa). There used to be a "Legacy CLI" that was a Cisco CLI shell, but it was pretty limited at a time. I believe EXOS is pretty straightforward, no worries. Any questions you got, just reach us out here!

Hope that helps,
Tomasz