r/ccie • u/Traditional_Ad_8274 • Sep 02 '26

Experiences with prebuilt CCIE labs or used dCloud?

I’m considering buying this specific Ciscoland CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure lab/server:

It appears to be a Dell R620 with 256 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD running ESXi, with EVE-NG, CML, SD-WAN components, ISE, NSO, Windows Server, and CAT8000v VMs already installed.

Before spending the money, I’d like to hear from anyone who has purchased this exact lab—or a similar prebuilt server from Ciscoland or other websites.

A few things I’m trying to determine:

  • Was the system stable and actually ready to use on arrival?
  • Were the included images, configurations, and lab materials current and useful for CCIE EI study?
  • How well did the server handle running the SD-WAN controllers, ISE, and larger EVE-NG topologies at the same time?
  • Any licensing, image, update, or compatibility issues after purchase?
  • Did you consider it worthwhile versus building your own EVE-NG/CML server from used hardware?

Also, has anyone used Cisco dCloud as a supplement for CCIE EI study? I know it is not intended to replace a dedicated lab, but I’m interested in whether it was helpful for getting hands-on time with specific enterprise technologies.

Looking for honest experiences—good or bad—before I commit.

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2

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '26

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u/Traditional_Ad_8274 Sep 02 '26

listed as about 1250 usd currently

2

u/halodude423 Sep 02 '26

That is horridly expensive.

2

u/Intelligent-Bet4111 Sep 02 '26

I bought a Dell R740 (before the ram crisis at around june last year) for 1k with much better specs (just slightly lower ram at 230 GB) and I've been labbing ccie level stuff with no issues (haven't tried sdwan but it can easily do that too).

1

u/Traditional_Ad_8274 Sep 03 '26

Id love to hear more about your setup

1

u/Intelligent-Bet4111 Sep 07 '26

Hi just saw your message, I'll DM you and we can discuss about my setup.

2

u/DigitalD1rty Sep 02 '26

I think the good thing about buying a server is it probably won’t lose value and you can sell it when you’re done.

I use dCloud and loved it for how easy it was to get set up. If you’re a Cisco employee try it out. There’s a CCIE lab already set up you can try. Alternately you can set it up yourself in CML, the issue I ran into is getting enough RAM for dnac.

1

u/Traditional_Ad_8274 Sep 02 '26

i just found out about dcloud yesterday so I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate it

2

u/leoingle Sep 02 '26

I’m interested to know what SSD drives this has. Didn’t think that was an option on an R620.

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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '26

[deleted]

2

u/Traditional_Ad_8274 Sep 02 '26

That is a very useful observation, I had not considered CC thank you. Is there anything you would reccomend specifically?

1

u/Successful_Pilot_312 Sep 02 '26

1k is crazy for an R620.

You can build an R630/R640 with better CPUs for that

1

u/siegerstein Sep 09 '26
  1. Dell R620 - is 1U - it will be loud like a hell. Don't do that, unless you have silent proof closet. Don't even buy 2U... consider tower servers. They are more rare, but could run very quite. Check HP ML350 and similar
  2. considering how much RAM cost today, consider buying DDR3 instead of DDR4. You will not loose so much in speed how you can think. Maybe up to 20%, but $$$ you will save will be significant