For many years as a Network Engineer I've been using a Windows notebook for work and now with my new employer I have the option of either a Windows or Mac notebook. I would still have a Windows desktop for everyday use but for home and in the data centers I would use the notebook especially for working with Cisco equipment. I have not used a Mac for work but I do like them and was wondering if anyone else uses one for the same purpose.

I have a new USB to serial adapter for console connections but not sure if it works with Mac as it works fine with Windows. My concern is Hyper Terminal and telnet but we have a license for Secure CRT which should be fine. My other concern would be TFTP as I use that to backup the Cisco configs; I have been using the free Solarwinds product in Windows.
Thanks for any help or comments.

Jeff

On a Mac you can enable the tftp server on board pretty easily either through the free tftpserver app or by a little command line juju. http://meinit.nl/how-to-enable-tftp-server-on-mac-os-x

As for the CLI access, telnet is built into the OS. There is a Secure CRT for the Mac that was recently released but not really necessary unless you just like SecureCRT.

As for console access, once you've got the right drivers for the USB to Serial cable, its pretty easy to just use screen to attach to the serial port (screen /dev/) http://www.markholloway.com/blog/?p=1427 has a decent article on how to do it.

What's the support like for VMware and Dynamips like on MAC?

Essential tools for me. I wouldn't change from Windows unless i could have them.

http://www.vmware.com/fusion

and

http://www.gns3.net

There's a port of wireshark for OS X but it runs under Xwindows so it looks a bit odd, I'd love it if someone redid the GUI for OS X.

USB/RS232 works works fine with screen as suggested.

I've not tried iTerm2 but I hear good things about it http://www.iterm2.com/