So I'm about to acquire the gear to get my CCNP. At the Occupational Advisory Committee meeting at the technical school I graduated from, some of the members mentioned that theres a possibility that the gear could be a knockoff. Is there any way to check on this other then having to go back and find the receipts of the original purchase?
I think alot of this mindset is Cisco's FUD about buying graymarket gear...
But they do have up a page on detecting their commonly counterfeited parts (mostly WIC-1DSU-T1, VWIC-xMFT-x...)
The counterfiters are going to go after cheap to make, easily copyable items that can be sold over and over again. Much of Cisco's product line past the entry-level gear uses custom ASICs which are going to be difficult to copy, and not that large of a market for. How many people are going to go buy a Sup720 card off eBay. Less than 100? They can't make back their reverse engineering costs at those volumes.
OOTH, WIC-1DSU-T1's get sold by the hundreds all the time, and are easily copyable, no ASIC on it.
Cisco has a page up showing things to look for for counterfeit gear.
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