Recently, i had been practising some networking as a part of my training at NTPC limited. Many a systems at NTPC were process critical and online, so i could not understand on how to configure them.
I did some research, and found out that there's a software called Cisco Packet Tracer , which is a network simulator for networking students. I decided to try it myself.
The software is easy to use and install. You just have to click on an icon, select the type of device, and click to deploy it. Double click on the device to configure its settings. Click and select a specific type if wire(coaxial, optical or telephone) and a couple of click to deploy it. If you don't want to waste time in selecting the appropriate wire, just click on autoselecvt and the appropriate wire would be selected automatically. You can support WAN's, multiple networks, etc without any hassle.
The software is quite advanced, as it supports clouds, tv's, ip phones, voip phones, printers, pda's, laptops, tablets, MPS, and a lot more. You can test any end by either sending a test data packet, or using its visual interface., that is by means of the regular command prompt operations like tracert, ping, etc, or by using the browser emulation.
Cisco Packet Tracer does allow you to see what happens in the OSI model during one specific point of time in transmission. This is extremely useful to see how things work. IP header, OSI model layer usage, all such data for one point of time is given.
And te best part - Cisco Packet Tracer is an absolutely free download from the Cisco site. There are also many mirrors out there for it. That adds to the surprise.
Download cisco packet tracer from http://www.ccna4u.org/2010/05/packet-tracer-version-53-software.html
Overall, i can say that it is one of the best LAN trainers out there. People doing networking courses such as CCNA should use it to learn.
I'd give it 4.5 out of 5.
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