Compras Nikon Bluetooth |
Once again Cisco Press and their authors have put together an outstanding book for people that either can't go to classes or want to brush up on the subject matter before taking the exam. The title "CCNP Self Study: Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks" hits the nail on the head. I have found this book to be very readable with good explanations of the hard to grasp topics. This book is especially good for any CCNA certified individual looking to upgrade to the CCNP certification. Even if you are not interested in certifications the book gives a good introduction into networking and routing protocol which can easily be applied to real world practice.
When I got this book, I had already attended the weeklong Cisco BSCI course which covered the same topics in this book. However, I always felt like the class was very fast paced and didn't cover a lot of the topics in detail. This book on the other hand goes in depth on each of the subjects required to pass the exam, giving you time to understand the topics before you attempt to get them to work in a lab. The examples and labs are very similar to, if not the same, as those that are presented in the class.
The overall organization of the book is logical and runs from the easier topics in the beginning, to the harder topics towards the end of the book. Each chapter is laid out with an introduction to the subject area at the beginning of the chapter, the meat of the learning info (which is broken into topic areas), a topic summary, and then a lab and finally review questions to test your retention of the information. The topic areas are laid out in a logical readable format with appropriate easy to follow diagrams. The labs are discussed from start to end with different tasks broken down into step-by-step instructions. The lab solutions and router configurations are included so you can figure out what happened when things don't work exactly as planned. The review questions are challenging with solutions also included in the book.
The only disadvantage of the book is that if the reader does not have equipment to setup the labs they may not get the hands on experience available from the class. And, of course, there isn't an instructor to ask questions to. On the other hand, if you do have access to equipment you can spend all the time you want implementing the labs and trying out the different scenarios. There is one thing that would have been a nice touch to include in this book and others like it: A CD or FTP/Web site from which you could download printable labs, network diagrams and router configurations. This would allow the reader to print out the labs and make notes on them without messing up the book.
I believe that this book can help anyone with some basic networking knowledge (a CCNA level person) and the patience to go through the books' examples and labs. If your goal is to pass the CCNP certification test this book will help you on your way. Even if you are not planning to take the certification tests this book can help give you a good overall understanding of how routed and routing protocols work.
In conclusion, I would rate this book a 5 out of 5 for being the next best thing to a live instructor. The authors did a fantastic job conveying the information required to pass the test as well as teaching information that is applicable to the real world, not just to the certification test. At a price of 60.00 this book is well worth the price. Printable labs, network diagrams, and router configurations would have been a nice addition, but the book is still very much worth its weight in Cisco Equipment...
The only drawback of this BSCI book is the lack of "foundation summary" which would've earned it 5 stars from me.
If you want to read just 1 book to pass the BSCI exam, or as a reference for IP routing, look no further than this one.
Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.
I put up my thumb... and it blotted out the planet Earth.
-- Neil Armstrong
