Difference between Packet Tracer v 7.0 vs VIRL

Difference between Packet Tracer v 7.0 vs

VIRL (Virtual Internet Routing Lab)

Features to know in VIRL

VIRL has recently updated its node limit to 20 nodes (previously 15). An option also exists to increase the limit to 30 nodes for an additional price. These are some of the nodes that can be used in VIRL:

Features to know in Packet Tracer version 7.0

New Cisco network devices:

• Cisco IE2000 industrial switch
• Cisco 819 IOX router with applications hosting (virtual machines) capabilities
• Cisco 829 Industrial integrated service (ISR) router
• Cisco 1240 Connected Grid Router
• IoT home gateway

Other devices :

• Server device : New "Internet of Everything" and "VM Management"
• Registration server for IoT devices
• Single board Computer (SBC)
• Microcontroller Unit (MCU)
• IOE devices and sensors in a new IoE devices category: solar panel, power meter, car, wireless home gateway, power meter, weight sensor, motion detector, temperature sensor, conveyor sensor,etc.
• Programming languages (java, python, blockly visual programming editor...). Provides the capability to program IoT devices custom behavior.
• Fully customization IOE "Thing" with wireless or wired network capabilities. Provides the capability to build an unlimited set of simulated items with IOE capabilities.
• Programming tab added in the IoE device configuration box
• Wireless IOE RFID sensor.
• Wireless IOE RFID items.

New network features & protocols :

• LLDP
• SPAN/RPAN
• Precision Time Protocol (PTP)
• Resilient Ethernet Protocol (REP)
• Improved PoE support
• IoT switch protocol support

Other features

• Pipe ( | ) in show commands
• Improved PoE support
• Modifiable environment (time, sun, ...) for demonstrating IoT devices capabilities

Packet tracer supported protocols:

Layer	Supported Protocols
Application	FTP, SMTP, POP3, HTTP, TFTP, Telnet, SSH, DNS, DHCP, NTP, SNMP, AAA, ISR VOIP, SCCP configure, and calls ISR command support, call manager express,  IOT
Transport	TCP and UDP, TCP Nagle Algorithm and IP Fragmentation, RTP
Network	BGP, IPv4, ICMP, ARP, IPv6, ICMPv6, IPSec, RIPv1/v2/ng, Multi-Area OSPF, OSPFv3, EIGRP, EIGRPv6, Static Routing, Route Redistribution, Multilayer Switching, L3 QoS, NAT, CBAL , Zone-based policy firewall and Intrusion Protection System on the ISR, GRE VPN, IPSec VPN, HSRP, CEF, SPAN/RSPAN, L2NAT, PTP, REP, LLDP
Network Access/ Interface	Ethernet (802.3), 802.11, HDLC, Frame Relay, PPP, PPPoE, STP, RSTP, VTP, DTP, CDP, 802.1q, PAgP, L2 QoS, SLARP, Simple WEP, WPA, EAP, VLANs, CSMA/CD, Etherchannel, DSL, 3 /4G network support

Importance to know about VIRL

Actually,we will be able to run virtual servers within the topology. Running any virtual server opens up the testing environment to many capabilities that run in the production networks. There is a feature to SNAT the topology with existing physical networks. Both of these capabilities provide options to scale outside of the virtual environment. The virtualization is so good that Cisco is concerned that people will use these in production.

 Cisco is looking at three deployment options:

• Laptop version
• Appliance
• Hosted Access

The first option is running VIRL on your laptop. This is similar to running GNS3. The limitation of this is your laptop’s hardware resources like RAM and CPU. Each VIOS shouldn’t take more than 200-300 MB of RAM. It is the VRVR (IOS-XR) that needs 4GB of RAM (not sure about the other ones).

The second option is connecting to a server internally on your network. Most likely that will be an appliance either virtual or physical. This option works better for large scale topologies with lots of emulated devices. Devices could be accessed with Putty and topology can be designed with the fat client using VM Maestro. The second options fits for validating production network designs.

If you are not interested in locally hosted VIRL, there is a third option which is hosted in Cisco’s cloud. From my conversation with Cisco, this will be accessed using Cisco’s learning network. Access could be provided with VM Maestro or a web design tool. This option is the most scalable and might look similar to Junosphere. Access could be purchased in a similar way as rack rentals but at any time without time slot limitations.

Other important components we should know in VIRL are ;

• Host – This can be a bare metal UCS server or a VM under UCS with ESXi or a VM in a Laptop under VMplayer/VMfusion/VMWorkstation.
• Ubuntu OS – This is the base OS under which VIRL server runs.
• Openstack – Openstack manages all aspects of the VM. In the released version, Icehouse distribution of Openstack is used.
• KVM hypervisor – VMs run on top of the KVM hypervisor
• VM Maestro, CML client – These are the client application software with a nice GUI that is used to design topology, visualize topology and run simulation. VM Maestro is the client software used with VIRL and CML client is the client software used with CML. Most of the user interactions are with the client software. The client server communicates with the VIRL server software running in the background. The heavy lifting is done by the VIRL server.
• Autonetkit – This is used for generating configurations automatically and for viewing topologies at different layers(L1, L2, L3)
• VIRL topology service director – creates VM and links between VMs talking to Openstack and other components.
• VMs – Current supported VMs include ios, xr, nxos, csr, osa, ubuntu servers, ios L2.
• UWM(User workspace management) – This is the web based management application to manage images, flavors, licenses, topologies, capturing packets etc.

Advantages in VIRL :

• Design a complex network topology with different routers, switches, servers, firewalls etc. As of now, the focus is on Cisco devices alone(I did see VMs of Juniper and Vyatta in the VIRL downloads page), this can be extended to products from other vendors.
• Generate configurations automatically. For example, we can specify routing protocol properties for each node and the configurations gets generated automatically.
• Visualize networks at different layers including physical, L2, L3.
• Being able to change network configurations on the fly and see how the devices respond.
• Connect virtual devices to physical devices and create a unified network. Physical devices won’t know that it's talking to virtual devices.
• Packet forwarding at IP, L2, MPLS.

Disadvantages in VIRL :

• Emulating ASICs, FPGA and other physical devices of router/switches.
• Since packet forwarding is done in software, VIRL cannot be used for performance and throughput tests.

Advantages in Packet Tracer v 7.0 :

• The Catalyst 3560 switch supports enabling port-security on interfaces, but it is missing the 'show port-security' command(s). The commands are present on the Catalyst 2960 switch.
• When configuring a remote SPAN on any kind of switch, the program crashes just after configuring the RSPAN destination into the remote vlan (monitor session 1 destination remote vlan 99 reflector-port fa0/24). Will probably be corrected in Cisco Packet Tracer v 7.0
• It is free of cost for who and all training for Cisco certification exams can download and install the simulation in our PCs.
• Which has new features to work out for the lab exams in CCNA, CCNP and for any networking learners.

Disadvantages in Packet Tracer v 7.0 :

• Which would not work when running "show ip ospf interface" command
• Do not work when moving from physical to config menu of the 2901 ISR router
• Do not work when running entering the "service password-encryption" command on the ISR 829 router