It's been almost 24 hours since GNS3 launched a campaign to bring in funds to support the open source network simulator and bring it up to version 1.0. A lot of new features are on the list, like switching, cloud processing, hassle free configuration, labs/training materials and 3rd party integrations. All of which are in the works for this new version added along with some pretty cool plug-ins. As of writing this post they are at $106,973 dollars which is 300 percent over funded! A pretty good turnout in fact they meet their goal in less than 4 hours of stating the campaign and have 16 days left to go. GNS3 has had a history of being one of those free products that can be little overwhelming at first. However once you start looking into blogs, videos and other many helpful resources about GNS3 it becomes an amazing tool to simulate networks. In fact once you have verified/tested your configuration you could take that same running-config from GNS3 and paste into production, what free network simulation product does that? I have used GNS3 for the most part for studying Cisco certifications but just recently I have found that GNS3 to be very helpful in my current work environment as I am able to play around with network designs. I could also think of other ways to use GNS3 like for demo networks, poof-of-concept ideas, security projects and much more. From what I can tell from the ideas and features coming into version 1.0 I am hopeful that this version will be a game changer for GNS3 just as it was six years ago. If you have used GNS3 before go ahead and take a look at their campaign and see if you would like to contribute, or you can as always wait until it officially releases for free. If you never used GNS3 but have an interest go ahead and download the latest version of it, there is some good documentation on GNS3’s website on how to configure it as well other blogs and videos of how to install/configure. I hope this short post is informative and just for a FYI I’ve personally contributed to the GNS3 campaign. Good Luck Stephen and Jeremy! So with that what would you like to see in GNS3 1.0, and in future versions of the product? Also what has the current version of GNS3 helped you with? Comment Below! More Information: General GNS3 Early Release FAQCrowdFunding PageGNS3 Homepage
