Customer Reviews

All-in-One Cisco(r) CCIE(tm) Lab Study Guide

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I got the CCIE Lab Study Guide ISBN 0-07-135108-6 a few days ago and I thought I'd share my impressions.

The book has 86 labs that require a variety of equipment. The breakdown is:

1 terminal server lab 7 ISDN specific 8 frame relay specific 2 ATM (4500 only) labs 4 RIP specific 5 IGRP specific 8 OSPF specific 5 EIGRP specific 3 BGP specific 4 route redistribution labs - various combos 5 access list labs 4 policy based routing labs 2 cdp labs 5 NAT labs 2 HSRP labs 4 NTP labs 3 IPX labs 4 appletalk labs 2 Catalyst labs 3 IOS upgrade labs 3 password recovery (3600, 2500, cat 5500) 2 http server on router labs

I've done the password recovery, terminal server, cdp, catalyst, and frame relay labs so far and I've read over the ISDN and ATM portions. Depending on how well you grasp the underlying technology the labs can take anywhere from five minutes (cdp) to an hour or two of hacking (getting frame switching running with one router as central site for three remotes and firing up rip).

The bad news first: I think the ATM and Catalyst portions are *very* slim for a book advertising to be a CCIE prep course however ...

The good news: This looks like a killer book for ACRC prep. I felt the frame relay presentation was very solid and the ISDN appears to be of equal quality. The overall coverage of the various routing protocols has as many labs as the well covered layer 2 technology and there is a lot of information here along with working configurations put together step by step. The BGP section appears a tad thin to me but I've skimmed it and not actually tried any of it ... perhaps BGP is not nearly as fierce as its reputation.

I completed my CCNA two months ago, will likely do my CCDA before the end of the year, and I've read through the Sybex ACRC book. After an initial read of the Sybex book I felt like I was standing at the bottom of a great big mountain to be climbed. After tearing through 17 of the exercises in the CCIE Lab Study Guide I am feeling like I should be able to master the routing protocols with two or three months of study and practice.

It says CCIE on the cover but I think any ACRC candidate could benefit from this book.

This book basically takes you through many of the technologies you will meet in the real world and on the CCIE lab in 80+ well written scenarios.

However, this book alone will not get you to the required level to pass the CCIE lab, so don't misinterpret the title. This book is great for people who do not have that much hands on experience with cisco routers. For the CCIE you will require a much more indepth understanding of all topics covered, plus several more topics which are not covered at all.

Exactly the kind of book I was looking for. Many of the other books I read did not even come close to the hands-on topics that are provided in this book. I also found the way it is structured to be ideal for CCIE study. Its also an extremly EASY READ.

DO NOT Buy this book to learn about routers or IP or any other routing protocols for that matter. Its not what the authors aimed for. They assume you have a pretty strong foundation dealing with cisco realted equipment and tell you how implement them effectively.

The book is also an excellent source of reference.

I visited my local bookstore this afternoon, and found a pleasant surprise waiting in the Cisco section. The new 'CCIE Lab Study Guide' by Stephen Hutnik and Michael Satterlee has been released by McGraw-Hill. (ISBN 0-07-135108-6, price: $80). Through a series of 86 lab exercises the authors have done a fine job of documenting the areas to study for the CCIE lab exam.

No matter where you are in your progress towards the exam, this book is a worthwhile addition to your Cisco library. The book begins with a chapter titled, "Take the Lab Once and Pass", a very encouraging statement. The authors have minimized introductory and appendix material, filling the one thousand pages with highly focused, useful material. I was glad to see coverage of topics such as ATM, HSRP, and NTP. While I knew that only the basics of these topics should be mastered for the lab exam, the authors have made this job much easier for me.

The entire book contains output from numerous working configurations. These examples confirm that the authors did not just throw together another theory book, but have taken the time and effort to create scenarios that can be recreated by the reader. A CD accompanies the book, and contains complete configurations so that the reader can copy and paste them into home lab hardware.

In short, this book is one of the most interesting books concerning certification topics. Buy it, and plan to stay up late the night of your purchase. You won't be disappointed.

-- Mark Kopec A+, Network+, CNE, MCSE, CCDA, CCNP

The title of the book has nothing to do with the content. The Lab exercises are very basic, NO Bridging at all.!? No Dlsw configuration, No complex exercises with more than 3 routers having more than one protocol IP,IPX,APPLETALK, no voice configuration, no protocol type access lists. I would not recomend this book to anyone. Even for beginners, there is a much better collection of books.

The format of this book has good intentions. Covers a topic, has a brief lab, sounds good, looks good at first.

The biggest problem is that almost all of the labs have some type of confusing inaccuracy. Most of the lab diagrams contradict the accompanying configs (interfaces names and IP addresses are mixed up). Many diagrams show more than one interface on the same router with the same interface name...huh?

It looks like the technical reviewer missed a thing or two...

If your ready to practice for the lab you're way beyond this book. It is broad and covers a lot of the areas you need to know but it approaches it as if you are a beginner. Each lab starts with a useless text about the subject of the lab. How much more do you need to read about RIP, ISDN, Frame Relay, etc. If you are ready to practice for the lab you should have the written stuff down cold. The book could be half as many pages if they'd throw out the fluff. As far as the labs themselves, they are just training exercises the way they are presented. You don't get a spec that you can attempt and then compare to their answer. They give a general idea of what will be done then walk you through the exercise. As they show you their configs they present a lot of requirements that were not mentioned in the beginning. This book is better prep for the written than the lab.

I feel like I've wasted my money on it. I was fooled by these authors other book the CCIE Lab Practice kit. It is a good challenging lab practice book with complete specs so you can work the exercise before comparing your solution to theirs.

This is a pretty nice book and I'd recommend it for the CCIE Lab preparation. It includes a lot of small scenarions. Each of them is, of course, much easier then the real Lab, and this book doesn't cover everything, but it's still very usefull and I want to explain why. Usually if you use full-size scenarion from ccbootcamp or fatkid they expect you to have 5-9 routers with all features. But let's say you have just 2 or 3 routers and you wonder how you can use them for the Lab preparation. This is exactly what this book was written for. Using this book and a minimal set of equipment you can learn some areas pretty deep. Of course, it's not all in one, it's just a pieces, but if you know how to do each piece it's much easier to do the whole Lab.

As a Cisco Instructor I higly recommand this book to anyone willing to improve its knowledge and practice in Cisco's world. All labs are commented and useful explanations are given making the topics very accessible. I'm not sure it is the ultimate book for being CCIE - I imagine CCIE's level higher than the book's one- but I believe it is certainly the first step. I strongly recommand it to Cisco beginners.

This book does a very good job of covering the majority of scenarios that are covered in the Cisco CCIE Lab. What's more the experience of the authors'shows, I have found the bolded items in the configs invaluable as I follow the labs in the book. The coverage on MPLS and Frame Relay was especially useful for me.

I have purchased other CCIE books that state they cover the lab exam and they don't measure-up to this book. If you have to purchase one CCIE Lab book, make this the one you buy.