Cisco Ccnp Switching Exam Certification Guide (Cisco Career Certification,)

Tim Boyles | David Hucaby | Dave Hucaby

The CCNP Switching Exam Certification Guide is a fine study guide--and we say that because you'll definitely need to dig in your heels a bit to get the most out of this book, and it's not a primer by any means. But it's the next best thing you'll get to a Cisco class, and if you're prepared to put in your time on this book, it will reward you quite nicely.

The Exam Certification Guide maps closely to the exam objectives and covers them at about the level of depth you can expect to see on the exam--which is no surprise, given that it's written by Cisco. It's also written in a very dense, text-bookish style, and is much closer to an actual user manual than many of the "soft" test preparation books out there. Whether you view this as a plus or minus really depends on your point of view:

*If you're new to switching technology or are a book learner, you may see this book as hard to get through, since the usual "friendly" explanations and padded paragraphs are totally absent.

*If you're a tech who's looking for as much quick information as you can possibly get, or if you're passingly familiar with the tech to begin with, this book will be exactly what you're looking for.

Despite the brevity of what this book does, it explains things well and thoroughly. The writing is clear and concise, even when the concepts may not be, and the wealth of diagrams, flowcharts (this book is big on flowcharts and rightfully so), and tables help clarify and condense the information you need to know for the exam. And, because the information is coming from the horse's mouth, there are fewer technical errors than are usually present in even the best exam books.

If the book can be said to have a flaw for the serious techie, it's that this is a "learning" book, not a "testing" book. You'll definitely understand the concepts, but the questions at the end of each chapter are open-ended (as opposed to the multiple-choice questions you'll see at the testing centers) and don't necessarily prepare the reader for the pressure-cooker process of having to quickly choose between several similar-sounding answers with subtle distinctions. The book itself presents large masses of information without necessarily hinting at what sections are critical for passing the exam and which ones aren't. In that sense, the CCNP Switching Exam Certification Guide prepares you for real life but may fail you on the exam.

However, that's why we say that diligent preparation will save the day. Unlike other books, which focus exclusively on the "quick fix" solutions that get you through the exam but may cause you to make an idiot of yourself in real life, this book is concerned with the whole shebang. It takes more work to absorb the morass of information--but getting part of this book may ultimately be more useful than snarfing down entire, lesser, preparation guides. Recommended. --William Steinmetz

1 Good book
Quite a good book that explains newer technology/features in an easy way - Concise.

I use it to recertify my CCNP/DP and think this book is worth buying.

2 I?d really recommend buying this book
This an excellent book. I really like it. It helped me a lot to achieve my ccnp certification and at my job.
Although it lacks some important details, for example, in STA and MLS, that makes me search a lot to find out some answers I had, it covers all the fundamentals necessary to configure switches properly and to do a great test.
I like also the cd that comes with the book. First because I could print the exercises and write anything on the printed sheet, whithout writing on the book. Second, the test session is excellent and we have a lot of material.

3 A good book that needs a little help.
Based solely on the reviews posted here, I made the decision to use this book as the foundation for the exam. However, I felt it necessary to supplement it with CCIE LAN Switching by Hamilton and Clark, primarily because some of the concepts mentioned in the certification guide needed further explanation or illustration. I would also urge you to get the errata from Cisco Press website. A few words about the testing software that comes on the companion CD; it is a bit buggy. For example, the software will ask you to select multiple correct answers for a question, but will provide you only with radio buttons (which as you might know allows you to make only one selection--mutual exclusivity). Given all its shortcomings, I still think it deserves a four star rating.

Another book that I referred to was the CCNP Switching by Lammle (latest edition). Chapters dealing with Multicast (concepts) and Multicast configuration are explained quite nicely in Lammle's book. When it comes to Multicast and its configuration I suggest you read Lammle's book first, then read the corresponding chapters in the certification guide.

Finally, I used the Boson BCMSN test number 2 (the in-house test). Boson offers three tests for [$$$] each, so if you've got the money get them all. You'll get about 750 questions with all the three tests.

BTW: I took the test yesterday (Dec-19) and passed with a score of 926.

4 Worth to buy
This book is intensive (compared to sybex, I read that too) but easy to read.

I did not give 5 stars because of two reasons:

1)It includes ATM LANE and Token ring chapters which are not one of the exam topics mentioned in cisco's site (that means they are not included in the exam!) 2)I encountered many questions that I had no idea, never mentioned in the book (I knew every inch of that book, thats for sure)

The latter made me uncomfortable during the exam. I thought I was going to fail. Well, not so high but I scored 901 (passing was 776). Thanks to this book.

By the way, you should definitely use Clark/Hamilton book for switching. I had this one so I read it but this is just an alternative for Clark/Hamilton book. That one is the "Bible".

Good luck on the exam,

Can Zulaloglu

5 A Wonderful Book
Compared with CCNP Routing Certification Guide this book is a success. You can see careful writing, good organization and more importantly, clear and accurate description of the knowledge, all from hard work of the authors. Q & A part and attached CD-ROM are helpful too. This book reflects the high Cisco standard. This IS like a book from Cisco Press.

6 Switching in an understandable format.
I have been working with routers and switches for about 3 years, I have had little success finding an book that covers the Switching Exam for Cisco that provides all the necessary information and in a manner that is understandable and easy to follow, that was up till now.

In this book the authors give you 15 different scenarios to work with as well as cover the topics of Layer 2, 3, and 4 switching along with Layer 3 routing. You also get exposure to the network design models and an excellent coverage of switch configuring.

Along with that comes topics like VLANs, trunking, VTP, STP, ATM and LANE, inter-vlan routing, multilayer switching, HSRP, multicasting and most importantly troubleshooting the switch and configurations.

Each chapter has review questions, there is excellent coverage of the switch and the commands, and the book has a great number of screen shots, diagrams and tables to work with.

Included is a cd rom with over 200 practice questions in various testing formats. Overall the breakdown is great and the information is relatively easy to comprehend and follow.

7 (Please refer to chapter...)
I like the certification guide series because of the included CD practice tests. This book is the only book out of the series that I would have avoided if given the chance.

The Bad: The points jump around a lot and about every 5th page references a different section and drops the point. The book did not flow at all which made for difficult reading. Because of this I had to force myself to sit down and just to get through some sections. Reading the section on multi-layer switching has been the worst 20+ pages I've ever read from Cisco press. The diagrams are un-descriptive and many of the points need more elaboration. I feel that with some decent diagrams and elaboration it would be clear to me how the various components of MLS operate together, instead of trying to put all the pieces together from other sources.

The Good: Bulleted listings and screen output of what you'll get from the various show commands. The CD although buggy is good practice. Since it's Cisco press it should have all the information needed to pass the exam, though that information is difficult to decipher. (See section on "The Bad")

8 Good enough to pass exam
I used only this book for switching exam. I read it for less than three weeks. I found a few minor errors in printing and a lot of bug on test software. some questions are multiple choices but you can select only one and you are rated as incorrect for these. Reference in software just point to chapter, neither page number nor paragraph been mentioned. Oh, I passed the exam with a score of 869 on 5/31/01 eventhough one third of questions were never learned from this book. I think I was lucky on my guess;-)

9 Great Study Guide with CD ROM!
The strengths in this book are chpt. 2 Campus Network Design, chpt. 6 Tunking with ATM LANE, and chpt. 9 HSRP. They were the best organized and well explained. The questions before and after each chapter were very helpful in understanding the chpt material.

Chpt. 5 Redundant Switch Links that dealt with STP and such, chpts. 10 and 11 Multicast and Configuring Multicast cover very important material but left me wanting a better, more organized and complete explanation. Not the random, seemingly cut and paste jumbled up mess that I read (a little harsh.) The chapter on MLS, also an important topic, could have used some more or better explanation. The foundation summaries at the end of each chapter, which I like to review, were very light on summary details, and were generally lacking or incomplete. The rest of the book was sufficient in organization, topic explanation, and detail.

Why five stars? Because overall the book is a really good coverage of the exam material, and with the accompanying CD ROM which contains a PDF file version of the book and over 200 test questions it's a great study guide package for the 640-504 exam. I would recommend it to anyone preparing for the switching exam.

10 Good Complementation to BCMSN
Cisco courses are way to expensive to me, so I always go for book study. I always buy the Course book together with the certification guide. Sometimes the course book is better, sometimes the certification guide is better. (The CCNA certification guide is better than the main book, for CCDA it's the opposite)

I don't completely like the way the BCMSN book is built, but love the certification book (and you get a testing CD-ROM !). The certification book explains things that were unclear to me by reading the BCMSN book, and it's easier to read.

I rate this book 5 stars because it's doing what it's supposed to be, provide enough and complete information needed for on-the-job success and pass the exam. If you need more information there is the LAN SWITCHING "bible" which is complete but hard to read for a non-expert, or you can do a search on the cisco website for the excellent topic-related articles.....

My advice is a definite "buy" or buy the new "CCNP certification library" to get 4 books in one ! I'll probably never buy non-cisco books again, some of them are easy to read but always seem to ignore things.

11 Switching Exam
This is exactly the same information that is found in the actual course material for the BCMSN class. Granted, all of this information is what is on the test, and this book is a lot less expensive than the actual class :-), but I was hoping for a book geared for actually passing the test itself--I am already familiar with most of the concepts found in the book. I thought that Lammle's and Deal's books were better suited for me. For someone that doesn't want to spend $2,500 on the class, but is somewhat familiar with switching, this is a good book to get.