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CCNA Certification Training Tutorial: Routing On A Cisco Lab Frame Relay Switch

By Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933

In another CCNA Certification tutorial here on the site, I showed you how to configure a frame relay switch. Your Cisco lab frame switch may not use all the serial interfaces on the router, and there are probably some other interfaces that aren't being used, either.

There's no reason to waste them, because the frame-relay switching command that enables a Cisco router to act as a frame relay switch does not mean you can't also use it as a router in your practice lab.

In that article, we had a frame relay switch that was using interfaces Serial1, Serial2, and Serial3 for frame switching. That left interface Serial0, as well as an ethernet interface.

To enlarge the lab, we could now connect R3 and the frame switch with another DTE/DCE cable, assign an IP address to Serial0 on the frame switch, and practice configuring routers that are directly connected via their serial interfaces.

You could attach the frame switch's ethernet interface to the same switch that the other routers are connected to and run a routing protocol on the frame switch for even better exam practice!

There's nothing complicated about using a frame relay switch as a router in your Cisco lab as well; the main purpose of this article is to remind you that you can do it. Don't let those extra ports on your frame switch go to waste - configuring the same routing protocol on that device as your production routers are running, and you've added another router to your lab at no extra cost.

You can also run more complex routing protocol scenarios that will more than prepare you for CCNA exam success!