Clare Gough
1 Not the best, but it did help
This book made so much more sense to me only after I read Todd Lamels CCNP Routing book. It has about the same info., but Todds books are so much clearer and easier to read. This book just jumps from one thing to another, it does not flow. I used this book for the new BSCI exam, I know it dosn't cover IS-IS and yes IS-IS is heavily tested on the exam, I got at least six questions. I would suggest using this book as only one of your resources. there were at least three questions I can think of that I could only find the answers in this book. I have passed two exams so far using these three resources: Todd Lamels books, Cisco press books (as a Reference),and Boson practice questions.
2 It's a waste of time to read the book
I totally agree with all of the bad comments on this book. I spent more than a month to read through it because I trusted it to be a good book. However during this period too much of my effort were spent on struggling with those misleading presentations and mistakes in the book. I kept looking up in white papers and other materials to make myself understand those topics. When I eventually understand everything, I concluded that the studying experience would be much much less frustrating and time-consuming if I chose a better book.
3 must use this!
excellent and well paced the cd covered the material very well.
I recommend for any routing 5 students or pre ccnps.
4 I liked it
I thought it was a pretty good book. I used this book and a few cisco whitepapers, and I passed the first time. I thought it covered each topic more than well enough to pass the test.
5 A bit of a disappointment
You would think anything Cisco attach's their name to should be first rate. Unfortunately, that doesn't hold true for this book. I have to agree with the others that the language and diagrams were far too difficult to understand to be of any use. I plan on using another study guide, along with Routersim software to pass the exam.
6 This book is by NO means from hard work
I totally agree with folks that gave the criticism to this book before me. The book is
1. Full of typos and errors! An incredible and inexcusable number of them have been seen here and there. I've been in US for several years and have NEVER ever seen any book, any book published in this country with that many mistakes!
2. Written in obscure British English. I really don't understand why they picked an Englishwoman to do this job. The English she uses in this book is technology-wise non-standard and unclear.
My conclusion is, you grab any CCIE in Silicon Valley who is conscientious for his job and speaks American English and he/she can do a much better job than Mr. Gough. The book is NOT worth to buy.
7 Not worth the purchase.
I'm quite disappointed with this book. I have been diligently reading it for the last week. At first, I noticed an abundance of typos. I just finished reading the OSPF chapters. Too much effort is wasted trying to figure out what the author is trying to say. The typos are now showing up in very critical areas. Information isn't consistent. After spending a very long time trying to understand the material, I realized that it was the authors presentation and typos that I was trying to work through not the actual material. Rather than waste anymore of my time, I'm going to purchase another book and start again.
8 Don't buy this book
I totally agree with the bad comments below. This book is a disaster. As someone says before: 1. There are a lot of mistakes. 2. Many diagrams are not very accurate. 3. It's too long. I'd want to add that is't incredible that 4 CCIEs (Clare Gough, Jorge Aragon, Steve Gifkins, Martin Walshaw) are involved in this work. What happens Cisco Press ?? The old-ACRC book (Laura Chappell)was definitely a good book for a long time in the routing theme. Hey Laura !! Could you teach these guys how to write a readable, useful and accurately book ??
9 This book is full of inconsistency and inaccuracy
I am very disappointed after finishing this book. At first, the book had a few minor mistakes which could be clarified from other sources. As I approach to the end of the book, it was not worth my time to use this book as my primary study guide. The way it was written was terribly messy. Examples and figures just were confusing (check out Figure 9-6/Example 9-1). BGP is already a hard topic to grasp, but this book really help you to be TOTALLY CONFUSED. Some test questions on the CD had questions that you really can't find an answer for in the book. This is my first review ever on any book and regret it had to be a bad review. I am very disappointed by it as the usually reliable Cisco Press had given me such a bad experience. I urge anyone who's planning to use this book for the exam to think twice before purchasing this book.
10 Save Your money until a 200 page ERRATA comes out
First, I will start with the one positive thing about the book. It attempts to take an in depth look at routing.
Now the negatives:
1. So many errors and typos that it is barely readable and will leave you wondering what is correct and what is not.
2. Too long and wordy!
3. The author states that some things aren't on the test that are on the test.
4. NO ERRATA FOR THOSE OF US THAT DROPPED [a lot of money] PLUS TAX ON THIS BOOK!
The bottom line... I hope this book isn't going to be the new standard for the Cisco Press books....
11 Covers the exam, could use a few updates.
You have passed the CCNA exam and are ready to tackle the CCNP certification. You have decided to start with the Routing exam but you are not sure of which book to get. Since the exam is Cisco based then the choice should be Cisco Press.
Within the pages of the Routing Exam Guide the author takes the reader on a detailed path to routing. The author tries to ensure coverage of each and every exam objective and judging from the material covered in the book it's very close.
With 30 scenarios to help teach you the advanced routing techniques you cover topics like IP Addressing with classful and classless with CIDR. Also the IP Routing protocols like RIP, IGRP, and OSPF in both single and multiple areas, EIGRP and BGP4 with large networks.
Also the areas of routing update and redistribution is tackled within the book as well. Like almost every Cisco Press book each chapter has review questions and also a cd rom with practice test questions is included.
12 ok, not great
This was the 3rd CCNP exam I took and I used the Cisco study guides for each. I'd agree with some of the others before me in saying this was the weakest of the Cisco series. It's not bad, but definitely not great either. I was particularly frustrated with a BGP Local Preference example that was given which was completely wrong. I spent 45 minutes at the bookstore searching other guides to verify. In fact, I ended up spending quite a lot of time with the Osborne/Syngress press book and liked it a lot. I would definitely recommend that book. I basically read all of the BGP chapters and most of the OSPF chapters and found them very comprehensive.
13 An Okay Book.
I rated it three stars because it did not live up to my expectations. I just took the routing exam and passed using this book as my sole study guide. The writing lacks humor unlike some of the american-authored technical books. I had to read some of the paragraphs several times just to understand it. Okay, I'll list down all the things I hate about this book: 1. There are quite a few mistakes. 2. The diagrams are not very accurate. 3. The commands in the example doesn't include the prompt. 4. It's too long.
Given that it is long, the contents are still not enough for you to be able to answer all the questions in the exam. I guess you really have to have a hands-on experience of the routing protocols to get a higher score. But I think this book is still better than the Sybex book because it has more and better coverage of the exam topics. Also, Gough said in the book that Route Maps are not included in the exam, DON'T BELIEVE HER, it's there! I almost had a heart attack when i saw one question about it. I didn't pay much attention to Route maps because I believed in what the author said.
14 Worst book in CCNP Exam Guide Set.
First of all there're errors and typos in this book, especially in the example and figure. The style of writng is wordy and not direct to the point. However, it covers all CCNP exam topics. I think that it's better to read "Routing TCP/IP vol.1 & 2" which cover everything you need.
15 Great Study Guide with CD ROM! Could use revision.
This book series has an excellent format with questions before and after the chapter, followed up by a chapter summary and scenarios. The CD included contains the book in PDF format and test questions. This book in particular also included a glossary of terms, which I liked.
Allot of command examples show only the command, missing the configuration location where the command should be entered. I wish more authors would be more considerate to detail that. There were a number of questions on BGP commands in the test engine that were not even covered in the material of the book. Some figures in the book did not mach the text ect. Some examples and scenarios were just flat out sloppy wrong. I also had apprehensions when I learned that the author would be using company case studies to present the topics of the chapter, but their usage was very light and unnoticeable. Occasionally, I felt like the author assumed knowledge that should have been explained.
Chapter 3 on hierarchical IP addressing was very well done. It really presented the next step from what was learned in the CCNA exam track. I needed to supplement with other materials to cover the missing continuity of the chapters that dealt with BGP and controlling route updates. The coverage of OSPF and EIGRP was sufficiently understandable.
Overall this is a great study guide that would deserve 5 stars if it weren't for the number of mistakes.
16 Typos and poor examples make this hard to recommend
I usually like Cisco Press books--they often seem to go into a lot of detail, much deeper than what the exam covers, and I like that. I think the details builds a more solid base for the workplace than just exam cramming to pass a test. As soon as I started reading this book, however, I realized that I had made a mistake. Nearly every example has an error in it. Even the few "working configuration" examples have so many errors that you will spend more time trying to figure out what the book is talking about than you will actually learning. Nearly 30% of all commands that have hyphens (access-list, passive-interface, etc) are written incorrectly in the book. Not only are they written incorrectly, but they are written inconsistently. I finished the book this morning and I have no idea which the command spellings are correct because they waiver back and forth. Granted, the CCNP exam probably won't ask questions on how to spell a command, but the CCIE lab exam will, and I won't want to have to start studying again from scratch for CCIE. The quizes are almost useless for the same reason. There are quiz answers that directly contradict the content of the book. There are also many quiz answers that just don't make any sense. For example:
Q2-1.2 You noticed the access list commands have been changed: How do you remedy the situation:
Router(config-if)#access list 110 permit 10.10.10.10 255.255.255.255 eq smtp
Answer: the problem is that the source and destination have been transposed. The list should read as follows:
Router(config-if)#access list 110 permit 10.10.10.10 255.255.255.255 eq smtp
First you notice that access-list is missing a hyphen. Next, you see that the question and the answer have the exact same text. Finally, the description is bunk: The first list didn't specify a destination at all.. there was no transposition.
Even more ridiculous is that if you could see the example diagram, you would see that there are no ip addresses on the diagram. Even if there were a source and destiation address, you couldn't know that they were transposed because you wouldn't know which was which.
The book isn't great even aside from the typos. Compared to the other books out there, there are fewer configuration examples and figures are poorly written, making it hard to determine what you are supposed to learn from them. Furthermore, most of the command examples have no context. Every other book out there will show each command with the appropriate router prompt(config), (config-if), etc. Not only does this book not show them, it will show several commands--each belonging to a different config mode--one right after each other. If you were typing as written into a router, you'd get nowhere.
I've had other computer books with typos . . . these books are so thick and so time-sensitive, that it would be impossible to not make any mistakes. But the errors in this book extend far beyond the example I've pointed out, and the book is nearly unreadable. The errors will leave you confused and distracted, and even if you make it to the end, you won't know what was right and what wasn't. I spent hours online figuring out which commands were correct and which weren't. Do not buy this book. It just isn't worth the pain.
17 disappointing quality
For a book endorsed by Cisco, and specifically targetted for preparing CCNP, you would expect good quality, at least I was. Unfortuneately, it is not like that. The book has some good points, like the quick quiz before each chapter, and the comprehensive answeres and notes. However, when you look at the example configurations and the corresponding diagrams carefully, most of time, they are messed up. Just look at the Chapter 9 example 9-5 and figure 9-9, and its corresponding text!Hopefully, a revision will make this book more useful.
BTW, I do like some Cisco books, like "routing TCP/IP" by Jeff Doyle, but not this one.
18 Quality book to reach that Cisco 'router god' status
A quality book written by Cisco Press that preps you for the new routing 2.0 exam. After passing the CCNA, this was the next logical step for me since I work with routers daily. It helped me pass the Routing Exam with a 890. The book has several approaches toward studying and focuses on the exam material itself, which is cool so you don't get bogged down in hardcore minutia. You can red it cover to cover or a chapter quiz at the beginning of every chapter to see how much you know or don't know about a certain topic. If you plan to get your CCNP/CCND, this book is a must for certification and building your Cisco skills. Make sure you do not use it as your sole study material...why put that much faith in one book. I am also reading exam cram and download various docs on the Cisco web site for more detail on a protocol where the book lacks. I talked to Yoda about this book and he said 'Network Jedi you will be, yes!' Buy it and get your CCNP and you will be the MAN!
19 Nice Work!!!
The CCNP Routing Exam Certification Guide is the perfect book to use to pass your Routing 2.0 exam. Remeber this book is from Cisco Press.In this book there is plenty of technical information included. There are lots of valuable notes that keep you from drifting into space.
