CCNP Certification Library (CCNP Self-Study 642-801, 642-811, 642-821, 642-831) (3rd Edition) (CCNP study guides)

First of all, the good points: By and large, these books are highly accurate and reasonably error-free, which is not at all surprising, since these are official course guides straight from Cisco's mouth. They get their facts across directly and succinctly, and are unlike most other certification books in that they're all deeply concerned with teaching you how to do your job properly. They're packed with on-the-job examples, and the experience shines through when it comes to teaching you the important bits, for not only do they show you the "how" and the "why," but quite often they also show you the "where"--how each technology and protocol fits into the larger picture.

The writing, unfortunately, is much the same from book to book--they're all extremely textbooky, as if each book was written by Joe Friday from Dragnet. There isn't a wasted sentence to be found here; every word counts, making the information-to-text ratio higher than almost any other certification book you're likely to find on the market. Skim a page of a topic that you think you already know, and you may miss two or three important smaller points that become quite important in later chapters. If you're used to chattier books like Sybex or Macmillan, the lack of handholding can be abrupt and startling.

The information density and real-world experience comes at a cost: Although the end goal of every test-taker is ultimately to put that experience to work on a live system, every CCNP wannabe has to get over the hurdle of taking the exam--and none of the books are true exam practice. Admittedly, each of them gives you tons of useful knowledge, but there are a lot of meanderings where they go into detail on something that never gets tested. Furthermore, they don't tell you that these are rarely-tested topics, so you may spend a lot of time struggling with some abstract concept that never comes up on the exam, and ignoring a subject that almost always is on the exam.

Moreover, the questions at the end of each chapter are essay-style, not multiple-choice. Cisco has made it quite clear what their teaching objectives are: If you know the material well enough, says Cisco, you don't need us to tell you what's on the exam--you'll know. As such, each book has to be read and thoroughly understood in its entirety in order to guarantee a passing score. This means that if you're willing to devote the time and effort, you'll pass without a hitch--exam slackers can look elsewhere.

The books themselves are remarkably consistent, and pleasantly free from the "two good books and a crappy one" syndrome so common in large, expensive boxed sets. Each book pulls its own weight, although the CCNP Routing Guide--even though it's the thickest and deals with some of the toughest concepts--is probably the weakest in the set, since some of the writing is obtuse even by Cisco's standards and may confuse those not intimately familiar with routing concepts. On the other hand, the CCNP Support guide is sterling by anyone's standards and is even a useful read for non-CCNP candidates, as it hands out real-world troubleshooting advice by the barrelful.

In short, this set isn't an easy read--not even close. It isn't for those who barely passed their CCNA or people who don't routinely work with networks. But it is astoundingly comprehensive and error-free by certification guide standards, and the effort you put into grinding through here will be richly rewarded by a high passing score and a good foundation of CCNP concepts that will set you up for an excellent job--and perhaps even your CCIE. Highly recommended. --William Steinmetz

Product Description

Review and practice for the CCNP exams with the official Cisco Exam Certification Guides

Coverage of all four CCNP exams enables you to identify and fill your knowledge gaps before the exam date

• CCNP BSCI Exam Certification Guide, Third Edition, coverage includes advanced IP addressing concepts, routing principles, managing routing updates, and configuring EIGRP, OSPF, IS-IS, and basic BGP
• CCNP BCMSN Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, coverage includes Spanning Tree Protocol, VLAN design and deployment, multicast networks, QoS solutions for voice networks, multilayer network design using the Enterprise Composite Model, and troubleshooting multilayer switched networks
• CCNP BCRAN Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, coverage includes assembling and cabling WAN components, configuring asynchronous connections with modems, traffic control methods, scaling IP address with NAT and access control with AAA, and a DSL and VPN overview
• CCNP CIT Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, coverage includes network information discovery and documentation, applying effective troubleshooting strategies, and isolating and correcting problems at the physical, data link, network, transport, and application layer

CCNP Certification Library, Third Edition, is a comprehensive review and practice self-study package for the four CCNP exams: BSCI, BCMSN, BCRAN, and CIT. The four books contained in this package, CCNP BSCI Exam Certification Guide, CCNP BCMSN Exam Certification Guide, CCNP BCRAN Exam Certification Guide, and CCNP CIT Exam Certification Guide, present complete reviews and ample opportunity to test your knowledge of CCNP exam topics. These authorized Cisco CCNP self-study guides are written by CCIE certified individuals and certified Cisco Systems instructors, bringing years of teaching and consulting experience together in an ideal test preparation format.

CCNP BSCI Exam Certification Guide, Third Edition, helps you evaluate your ability to build, manage, and optimize scalable, routed Cisco internetworks. This book covers all the topics on the CCNP BSCI exam 642-801, including OSPF, EIGRP, BGP, and IS-IS. CCNP BCMSN Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, covers all the topics on the CCNP BCMSN exam 642-811 and helps you understand how to build networks using multilayer switching techniques and how to deploy a global intranet. CCNP BCRAN Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, covers all the topics on the CCNP BCRAN exam 642-821 and tests your ability to configure, operate, and troubleshoot WAN and other remote access networks while maximizing bandwidth utilization over remote links. CCNP CIT Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, covers all the topics on the CCNP CIT exam 642-831 and examines your ability to diagnose, isolate, and correct performance problems and failures in a converged network environment.

Every chapter in each Cisco Press Exam Certification Guide focuses your study and tests your knowledge of the subject through specially designed assessment features. "Do I Know This Already?" quizzes assess your knowledge and help you decide how much time you need to spend on each section. The detailed Foundation Topics sections review the exam topics you will need to master. Each chapter includes a Foundation Summary section full of tables and concise reviews for quick reference. Challenging chapter-ending review questions and scenario-based exercises test your knowledge of the subject matter, reinforce key concepts, and ensure that you understand how all the technologies work together in a real-world environment. Finally, each book's companion CD-ROM has a robust, customizable test engine with simulation-based question types that allows you to take practice exams that mimic the real testing environment. You can take a full sample exam, focus on particular topic areas, randomize answers for reusability, track your progress, examine your strengths and weaknesses, and refer to an electronic version of the book to review concepts.

CCNP Certification Library, Third Edition, is part of a recommended learning path from Cisco Systems that includes simulation and hands-on training from authorized Cisco Learning Partners and self-study products from Cisco Press.Books in this series provide officially developed exam preparation materials that offer assessment, review, and practice to help Cisco Career Certifications candidates identify weaknesses, concentrate their study efforts, and enhance their confidence as exam day nears.

--CCNP BSCI Exam Certification Guide, Third Edition, by Claire Gough
--CCNP BCMSN Exam Certification Guide, by David Hucaby
--CCNP BCRAN Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, by Brian Morgan and Craig Dennis
--CCNP CIT Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, by Amir S. Ranjbar

This set, covering diverse topics in significant detail, is an excellent CCNP preparation tool. The material in the books focuses on Cisco's published objectives for the CCNP exams, and covers them well. The longest and most unique book in this collection is the volume on routing (BSCI). It's structured to cover the objectives for the 642-801 exam using several tools common to all the books in the set-namely detailed but highly readable text, graphical, tabular, and router configuration examples, Q&A and "Do I Know This Already?" quizzes, and the bundled CDROM. The graphics are first-rate and illustrate key concepts clearly.

What sets the BSCI book apart from the others in the set, and other Cisco Press books I've read, is the series of lab exercises at the end of each chapter. The BSCI labs provide comprehensive scenarios that take in all the concepts taught in each chapter, in step-by-step form. Answers are provided following each example so that you can check your work. This book is particularly well-suited to self-study. This level of detail and the inclusion of labs is key, since in my opinion, the CCNP routing exam (642-801) is the most difficult one in all of Cisco's Professional-level certifications. It's appropriate that the routing book, at 950 pages, contains about a third of the pages of the entire set!

The labs in the routing book cover concepts that Cisco hits hard on the exam questions and simulations, including OSPF, BGP and IS-IS. You'll need a fair amount of Cisco equipment to do the lab work, but it's obtainable on-line and is worth the investment if you want to do well on the exams and really understand the topics. For a book of this size, the routing text is remarkably consistent and error-free. Although I found a few minor errors here and there, the book is well-suited to self-study-in part because it is so accurate. The overall structure and content of this book make it the strongest learning tool I've seen for the BSCI exam.

Although the other three books in the set don't include this comprehensive level of configuration exercises, they do provide some scenario-based material to reinforce concepts.

All the texts are good for instructor-led training, or as a text for web-based training. Although the other three books are all significantly shorter than the routing text, they share many of the excellent traits that makes this set such a strong preparation tool for the CCNP certification exams. I tried to use Exam Cram 2 texts in addition to this Cisco Press set while preparing for the BSCI and BCMSN exams, and quickly found that the Cisco Press set offers by far the clearest, most easily digested, error-free and relevant information.

Each book in this set comes with a CD that contains a high-quality practice exam engine (sourced by Boson), as well as the PDF text of the book and some sample material from other Cisco Press titles. I found the CDs very useful-especially the test engines, since a key part of studying for certification exams that are as difficult as Cisco's CCNP exams is assessing what you've learned and how well you can apply it. The self-tests include questions of each type that appear on the exams, including basic simulation-type questions that are probably best called scenarios; they don't have the look and feel of an actual router or switch interface during configuration, as the exams do. They do, however, show you clearly whether you understand the command syntax and topics being covered. The practice test questions are harder and less forgiving, overall, than what's on the exams. I found that if I could make 75% or better on the sample tests, my scores were significantly better on the CCNP exams.

The weakest book in this set is the CIT text, which sticks strictly to Cisco's published objectives for the exam. As such, it's a bit simplistic and doesn't exercise your mind much when it comes to troubleshooting for results-it's oriented toward procedure rather than outcome. The author lets you know to expect this going in, and I appreciated his honesty. The three scenarios offered at the end of the book are rather weak; I was hoping for substantial troubleshooting exercises. But all of the topics on the CIT exam are fully covered in this book.

The BCMSN and BCRAN books are both excellent long-term references, along with the BSCI text, and cover not only the core topics of the exams but also a lot of information useful to networking people after the exams are distant memories. This trait is the core strength of this set. The layout, graphics, quality writing and editing, and extra learning tools make for an outstanding value. Overall, I can't recommend this set highly enough. The highly motivated learner will find everything in this set that's needed to pass the CCNP exams. That said, however, it is important to have either professional experience, a set of readily available routers and switches, or both, to make it over the CCNP hurdles.

These books have a prominent place on my bookshelf at work and at home. I have two sets because I think the books are that good. Anyone interested in networking at the geek level of detail will be well-served by this set.