CCNP Self-Study : Building Cisco Remote Access Networks (BCRAN) (2nd Edition) (Certification Self-Study Series)

Inc. Cisco Systems

1 Mssing a lot of key material !!
This version of the book is definitely missing key topics that are asked in the exam. For example, it does a very poor coverage of PPPoE in chapter 11. The RFC 1483 is never mentioned, which is a building block of PPP0oE and PPPoA architectures. Another example is QoS in chapter 15. Custom queuing (CQ) and priority queuing (PQ) are never mentioned which are favourite topics on the actual exam.

My recommendation is to either use another resource, or ensure that you supplement it with online pdfs from cisco.com and practice tests.

2 Geek Speak
The writing style is so lousy and unreadable, I shifted to the other CCNP BCRAN book (...)midway. Better as a finishing touch rather than as a starting point.

3 Decent study material, be sure to supplement with lab time
I never read the first edition, but the second edition includes a lot of practical information that anyone serious about using Cisco gear for networking should know. To summarize, the book covers (and the chapters generally follow):

* WAN technology and components
* AAA for access control
* Asynchronous (modem) and ISDN connections
* Frame Relay and traffic shaping
* Dial backup
* Queuing and compression
* NAT
* Broadband
* IPSEC

The new content is a much needed update. Anyone seeking to learn or crystallize their knowledge on these topics would do good to read this book. I own the Cisco "IP Quality of Service" book, but actually prefer the information in BCRAN because the information is presented in a simpler way without all the (excessive?) underlying theory.

The IPSEC chapter could have been written with less meandering. I ended up writing a one page cheat sheet of notes detailing the steps while removing all the intervening verbage, and it made it much clearer.

Mileage will vary with the information on asynchronous connections. The examples in the book required a fair amount of tweaking to work on the router with 12.2 IOS I used.

The book's proofreading is middle road at best, but fortunately most errors are fairly obvious. Cisco should direct more effort to proofreading - this is only one of several recent Cisco Press books published with the typo affliction. I would have given the book four stars if there were less errors, especially since most are obvious.

Overall, this book will teach you what you need to know!

4 Cisco Press...Could do better!
This is a very disappointing effort by Cisco Press and I find it hard to believe that they had the nerve to publish it. In terms of content, this book is pretty comprehensive but it is littered with technical, formatting and editorial errors.

My personal favorites are...
Page 9. Apparently a BRI line has a bandwidth of 2.048 or 1.544MBps (This is actually a PRI line).

Page 120. Editorial comment left in, reads as follows.
"pool" and "dhcp" should be italics. CP edit made.

Regarding the command. BACKUP LOAD 60 5
According to page 278, when the load on the PRIMARY line's available bandwidth falls below the second figure, the backup circuit will be disabled.
According to page 279, when the transmitted or received load on the primary AND secondary lines is less than the second value, the backup circuit will be disabled.
Incidentally, one of the questions on my exam asked which of these options was the correct one.

After reading this book I don't know how far I would trust any of the content. For my next subject I will choose a different publisher, I would encourage others to do the same.