Customer Reviews

CCNP BCRAN Exam Certification Guide (CCNP Self-Study, 642-821) (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I must admit that i'm usually reluctant writing reviews on other people's hard work, EXCEPT NOW!!!

This book will help you FAIL your BCRAN!! No doubt.

It's written in a format that gives you the confidence that it covers all aspects of the required exam. It doesn't!!

I had to spend an hour or two in a bookshop reading the details and proper configuration explanantion of PPPoe.

The book treats dialer-watch as non-existent!

That's THREE exam questions!!Get my drift yet??

There's also a very woolly explanation of queueing and compression!!.My knowlege and experience of Qos got me through.....3/4 questions!!

Remeber, i'm no new kid on the block here...Over 9 year's experience....and still failed firsttime...by 80marks!!

I resat the exam 6 working days later, having checked out the weak areas (not covered by this 'book'), and looking at exam cram and testking.

I scored 930!!! something not right!!

Good book for the shelf...that's about it!! sorry.

Be warned.

This book has so many errors, and missed topics its not worth your time purchasing this book. I used the BCRAN Student Guide instead to pass this test.

I think, for this title, Cisco put 1000 monkeys in a room with 1000 typewriters for a couple of years and then published the results. Of course they made sure it wasn't Shakespeare first, to avoid those pesky accusations of plagiarism...which seems to be the extent of their editing on this title. The most glaring error is the author's repeated insistence that in public key cryptography one provides their private key to the public so information can be encrypted, then the destination party uses the public key to decrypt the information. WHAT!?! Please, please do not do that! C'mon Cisco...even Microsoft got this one right. At one point later on the author seems to demonstrate the process correctly. I imagine he got encryption confused with digital signatures. Ok, fine, but WHERE WAS THE EDITOR!? There are countless other places in the book where the author contradicts himself, and other places he's just dead wrong. Fortunately I have enough experience to spot some of these, but I'm sure not all, since I am obviously still learning. I don't trust the author enough now to believe that he's telling me the truth. This is the worst Cisco Press book I've gotten ahold of yet. This is the last test I have to take for the CCNP and I imagine I'll pass, but it won't be due to this book. Even the CIT book by Ranjbar was better than this. While his didn't really reflect what's on the exam, at least it was very well written. If you can get your hands on the Student Guide for the BCRAN, use that instead and UniverCD on Cisco's site to polish up the rough spots. Rotsa ruck!

I was extremely disappointed in this text. I have read several Cisco Press books in the past to prepare for certification exams, and have always been reasonably satisfied. Not so here.

The most frustrating aspect of the book is its dissimilarity with the actual exam. The questions in the book and in the CD are almost exclusively about nitpicky factoids (default timer settings, maximum data rates, etc.) DO NOT BOTHER TO MEMORIZE THESE. Instead, the exam focuses on really understanding the router commands and debug outputs... two topics which the book is very weak on. There were also many, many questions which were not covered in the book.

First off, the subject matter within the BCRAN book is presented in a very conversational and meandering fashion. For example, a command or concept is often mentioned several times in the text before it is explained in the text - if it is ever explained at all. Utterly frustrating.

There are also several sections of the book that are criminally unclear and confusing. I re-read the CHAP section 4-5 times before giving up. I found a CHAP document on the Cisco web site, skimmed it, and immediate understood it perfectly.

Most commands are not well documented in the text, which is a sad contrast to other Cisco Press books. Commands are frequently demonstrated via a single, specific example and without the technical format which explains which portions are fixed, which are optional, which are variable, etc. This book also lacks a reiteration of commands during the foundation summary of each chapter.

I took the test yesterday having used only this book as a study guide. I failed with a heartbreaking 786 (790 to pass.) I have never failed a certification exam before.

You should seriously consider purchasing much cheaper books from other sources.

I sat the exam today with this as my primary source and some backup from ExamCram. I failed (644 with 790 to pass, 71 questions).

To date: I have taken 5 Cisco exams and passed the other 4.

The previous reviewers remarks were right on regarding PPPoE and dialer-watch. I was guessing on any of the questions regarding these two as they are not covered in the book. I walked into this exam very confident as that's the way this book makes you feel. Again, as the other reviewer pointed out, this book lulls you into a false sense of knowledge. I actually ran out of time. I still had 5 or 6 questions to go when the timer expired.

I am very disappointed with this book but after reading reviews on other sources, it seems as though there is no one source that a candidate can use to pass this exam.

After sitting for countless Cisco exams over the past 2 years, it's evident that there are only 3 rock solid ways of passing... And if you'll notice, using CCNP Cisco press books are not one of them.

My biggest pet-peve of this literary seletion was that it seemed to take excerpts from physics books instead of networking books..A WHOLE PAGE DEDICATED TO SATELLITE ORBITS!! Your kidding me right?

Countless ranting on material irrelevant to a cisco admin, config outputs just thrown onto a page, the perverbial "is it me or is it the book?" errata frustrations..the problems are endless.

What this book DID excel at was presenting the "line-up" for the exam. So if you went ahead and used the outline, you might very well be in good shape.

Oh did I forget to tell you 3 different ways to pass:

1.become a cheating braindump user and continue to devalue certs

2.forget "studyguides"..go to Cisco.com and download the .docs for the topics there. Those things are GREEEEEEAT!!

3.IMPORTANT=====>the most effective way to pass a Cisco exam is to obtain the official STUDENT GUIDE that you get if you take the class. Those kits are absolute gold...cisco takes diagrams and phrases directly out of there. I was lucky I took my entire CCNP track at New Horizons..worth the investment.

I am a CCNP as well as a Cisco Academy Instructor. I've taken 7 Cisco tests and this is definately not one of the better study guides. My gripes with this book are:

(1) After properly studying this book you will PROBABLY pass the exam. It's just enough to get by. Previous Cisco and Sybex books have made the tests a breeze and given me great confidence during the tests. By comparison this book falls short.

(2) A few items on the exam were not covered in the book. You may be blindsided by some of the questions.

(3) The included quiz CD-ROM has several defective questions. ie. the answer that is right in the book is wrong on the CD-ROM, etc... Did no one at Cisco Press proofread each question at least once before finalizing the CD?

(4) The quiz CD-ROM supposedly contains 225 unique questions. In taking the 50 question practice exam 10+ times, I encountered only about 100 unique questions. It seems the same questions get asked again and again, making your answers more reflex than knowledge.

(5) The questions in the book and on the CD-ROM are simpler than those on the exam. They don't provide any indicator at all of if you are ready for the exam.

The "CCNP BCRAN Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition" (ISBN 1-58720-084-8; Brian Morgan and Craig Dennis; Cisco Press; 547 pages) is the official study guide for the "Building Cisco Remote Access Networks" exam (BCRAN 642-821). The Forward to this guide states that it is "a complete study tool" for the exam. And it does appear to cover all of the topics described in the exam at www.cisco.com. The topics include traditional and emerging WAN technologies, dial-on-demand, NAT and security. The book is well structured, beginning with a high-level overview of remote access technologies and requirements and presents information in easily absorbed pieces. Very well executed figures, examples and even photographs are used liberally to help explain concepts and familiarize readers with the relevant Cisco products.

The book provides several suggested study strategies and useful tips for taking the real exam. The "Do I Know This Already?" questions at the start of each chapter allow readers with different levels of experience to focus on the specific areas they need to improve.

At the end of each chapter is a "Foundation Summary" that's intended to reinforce concepts and to be used as review notes prior to the real exam. But the "Foundation Summary" found in several chapters consists of only a few sentences and omits commands and other ostensibly important information found in the text.

Also following each chapter is a "Q&A" section with questions that are more difficult than the ones on the real exam. These questions probe one's understanding of a topic and don't depend on the multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank formats that encourage guessing at answers. All questions and answers are grouped into an appendix that makes a good review tool to use the day before the exam.

Although the back cover of the guide describes "an entire chapter of scenarios" or real world exercises, only a handful of scenarios can be found distributed among just a few chapters.

The companion CD-ROM contains practice questions and the full text in Adobe Acrobat format. A total of 276 test questions are available including 170 questions taken directly from the text and 20 lab simulations. The practice tests use the venerable Boson test engine and contain multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank and list-in-order style questions. The well-designed and functional simulator provides practice in basic configuration of many of the IOS features described in the text.

When errors are found in a practice exam at best they are a nuisance; at worst they can actually cost the reader valuable points on the real exam. Thankfully, the printed material and practice tests included here contain few obvious errors. However, no provision is made for easily reporting test errors if you do find them. There is no mention of how to go about reporting an incorrect answer. By contrast, some other products put a button on each answer that will send the questionable text along with comments directly to the author and publisher.

Although registration via Internet or telephone is required before the practice tests can be used, nothing prevents one from registering and using the product on a second computer. This "feature" will be very appreciated by those that want to install the tests on a laptop for use when traveling in addition to installing on a desktop computer. The onerous single-use license enforced by some other publishers prevents this legitimate use of their product. Let's hope that Cisco Press continues to permit products like this to be registered and used on more than one computer.

The authors have produced a technical reference and study guide that may very well be the only BCRAN exam preparation tool that you will need. And they've done a good job of presenting a lot of information in a thoroughly readable form with relatively few weaknesses. I look forward to seeing other titles from them. Overall the guide represents a good value. It can be purchased for roughly the same price as other BCRAN practice tests that don't include the high-quality hardcover text. On a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest rating, this guide rates a 4.

The book is well written and easy to read. This is the only book i used for the 642-821 exam. It is very similar to the first edition plus a few chapters on Broadband, VPN technologies.
The only thing i didnt like in the second edition is that it had too many chapters (very little ones) which could have been combined relevantly like it was in the first edition .
Also the test exams in the CD are very useful at the ...[fag] end of the exam to refresh all topics . Overall a very good book for the BCRAN exam .

The book was nice to get started on but failed in covering all topics on the test. I counted that I know of 6 questions on the test that the book only mentions the name of the topic once with no description. Being that the book came from CiscoPress I was very displeased. I expect this from other study guides but not CP. By the way who ever did the editing is smoking something. I came across several questions in book questions that had incorrect answers. Also descriptions on certain topics said one thing and then told you another thing on the next page. I think the only reason I gave it 1 start is that it is someplace to get started and that is as low as they will let me set it. If Brain Morgan wrote some of these things then I would question his CCIE cert.