Customer Reviews

CCIE Practical Studies, Volume II (CCIE Self-Study)

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I recently read the book titled "CCIE Self-Study: CCIE Practical Studies Volume II" by Karl Solie and Leah Lynch. ISBN: 1587050722. The book has quite a bit of information in it. I have read quite a few books from the Cisco Press CCIE library and must say that this title is a good compliment to the collection.
I like how the information is presented in this title. The authors have done a good job organizing the information. The format really helps to grasp the concepts and most importantly the implementation of certain features. The figures and illustrations in this title are exceptional. Especially in the chapters regarding Quality of Service. The diagrams help out a lot with conceptualizing the logic applied to some of the many queuing strategies. There are some diagrams pertaining to certain queuing strategies that I have not seen on other books, which help me to better understand the queuing mechanism a lot better.
This book is best suited for Small business and Enterprise professionals seeking to gain a solid understanding of particular networking features in Cisco equipment. Some Service Provider professional might find the BGP chapter to be very useful. I would recommend this book to those individuals or study groups that are starting out on their quest to obtain the CCIE certification and are in need of re-enforcing solid networking practices.
There are a few chapters that I found particularly helpful. The first chapter that covers the Catalyst 3550 gives some really good insight into the capabilities of this widely deployed switch. Anyone that has a wide deployment of Catalyst 3550's would find this chapter useful in unlocking the switches potential. Some other really good chapters are the three chapters that cover Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). The BGP chapters make up about 30% of the book and the authors have done an excellent job at communicating several of the many challenges when working with BGP. BGP is so well documented in this book that it make a great reference on the topic.
The book comes with a CD that contains some practice labs and configurations that would be helpful to know when studying for the CCIE Routing and Switching Lab. Most of the practice labs require several lab devices in order to replicate the environment in an actual lab. The labs have a good variety of technology challenges. Probably not the same caliber as the real CCIE lab, but good practice none-the-less. The CD also contains software that can be used for terminal emulation services. The software looks really nice. I believe most of the packages can send a break to the terminal, which is very useful when attempting to get to the ROMMON prompt for tasks such as password recovery.
Overall this book is a nice compliment to the many resources required when studying for the CCIE exam.

I am a multiple CCIE looking for all around knowledge of subjects, including the multiple topics listed in this book. Having read the first volume in the series, I wanted to learn the tips and tricks of the authors. I can honestly say that
although this book is good and worth the read, it was not as good as the first book. There are also much better books
to read on some of the topics listed in this book (see Halabi & Parkhurst for BGP) but the authors do add good examples to their explanations.

The best part of the book is the route-filtering and the queuing chapters. The switching chapter wasn't all that bad either with a deep dive into Spanning Tree as well as the features of the 3550. I was impressed with the output of the show/debug commands which shows us that the authors actually tested their configurations and allows the reader to follow along even if they don't have real gear to test the scenarios out.

Some of the material in the book was extraneous and felt a little like filler when reading it (the chapters on ATM and the Switching modes) but those were easily outdone by the BGP topic scenarios.

The full scale labs at the end of the book were really good and tested potential candidates on core areas and would give candidates an accurate account of the type of scenarios they should know for the real world.

Karl Solie and Leah Lynch's "CCIE Practical Studies, Volume II" (ISBN: 1587050722, Cisco Press) is a valuable addition to the CCIE candidate's arsenal of study materials, and provides new perspective on foundational topics, while diving deeper into more obscure areas. This second volume allows the authors to move beyond the core suite of CCIE required knowledge (e.g., Frame Relay, IGP's, PPP) in order to explore in practical ways the other key study areas. The book covers six major categories:

* Advanced Ethernet Switching with the Catalyst 3550
* Route Maps & Policy Based Routing
* Multicast Routing
* Router Performance Management - ATM, Switching Modes ,Compression
* QoS - Intserv, Diffserv, Rate Limiting, Queuing
* BGP-4

The book offers insight for all reader experience levels -- from those in the early stages of CCIE lab preparation to the advanced readers who are fine tuning their lab skills. At either end of the spectrum, this book serves as a complimentary volume and should be read along with the other suite of CCIE absolute "must reads" (e.g., Doyle's "Routing TCP/IP, Vols.1,2", Halabi's "Internet Routing Architectures"). Solie and Lynch's second volume's value is how it offers just enough theory to keep the novice going, but not so much as to overly repeat what has already been extensively written about. This same concept of minimal overlap extends past the theory and into the content and practice labs. Even though much of what is explored has been covered in other books, Solie and Lynch frame the material in a different way and offer numerous, helpful examples. In addition, each major category spends at least some time exploring concepts that have not historically been well documented. A simple example of this is how the authors provide real examples of how and when to use the ORIGIN attribute to filter BGP routes. Where previously other authors only provided conceptual details of the ORIGIN attribute, Solie and Lynch give practical examples of how it actually works and how you can manipulate BGP routing with it. In addition to exploring unfamiliar concepts, the strength of the book is in how the authors explain concepts in a simple manner and reinforce those ideas with easy to understand illustrations and multiple hands-on lab examples (assuming you have equipment to use). The book ends with five CCIE mock labs, with a companion CD that has the configs and solutions for the lab, as well as terminal emulation software. Strangely enough, considering that the book spends so much time covering QoS and BGP especially, the five CCIE labs do not really push the technical difficulty limits for these categories.

There are only a few drawbacks to this book. The chapter on the Catalyst 3550 could have benefited by cutting out the spanning-tree and trunking theory (much of which was simply duplicated from the first volume), and spending more time on other practical examples of advanced configuration (e.g. 802.1X, IP phone port configuration). Each chapter afterwards, however, seemed to get better than the previous. One minor point of frustration is the periodic errors found in the diagrams provided (e.g. wrong IP addresses, etc.). A few diagrams in the BGP section are not legible due to printing errors, but an errata was released to correct that problem and can be found online at ciscopress.com. For the most part, however, these drawbacks are only minor compared to the value of the overall book. Lastly, although not necessarily a fault in itself, as a compilation of various technologies, the book is not capable of going into fine detail in each of its categories and leaves the reader wanting for more examples and labs. Hence the reason this book must be considered a complimentary piece to the overall CCIE's library and not just a standalone work (not that there really is one). People looking for a single book to prepare them for the CCIE lab exam will be disappointed with this book, as they will with any other book.

"CCIE Practical Studies, Volume II" is an excellent resource for CCIE lab candidates. Additionally, it is a helpful resource to network professionals in general as it provides valuable and "real world" applicable knowledge of routing and switching.

I would highly recommend "CCIE Self Study: CCIE Practical Studies Volume II" by Karl Solie and Leah Lynch, ISBN 1587050722, to anyone who is preparing for their CCIE certification. After enjoying the first volume in this series, I was excited to see the release of the second volume. I found that as is the case in most Cisco Press books, the authors did a great job presenting the information in an easy to follow format and provided plenty of valuable examples and configurations. One thing that was great to see is that the book reflects the updated CCIE lab format (2-day to 1-day) and equipment specifications (mainly the addition of the 3550 switch). I would have to conclude that one of the main things that set this book apart from others is the practice labs that are found through out the book. The labs do a great job of driving home the concepts that are introduced. Keep in mind that most of the labs do require some pretty expensive equipment in order to perform the labs.

Book Details
The book is broken up into six main areas:

Ethernet Switching - This section covers the basic concepts of Ethernet switching such as Vlans, VTP, Spanning Tree and Ether channel. In addition to the basic concepts, a large amount of the section is dedicated to the setup and configuration of the new 3550 Catalyst switch.

Controlling Network Propagation and Network Access - This section covers creating and implementing Route Maps and Policy-Based Routing. There are four practice labs in the section and I found them very useful.

Multicast Routing - Just as the name implies, this section deals with the basics of Multicast such as IP addressing and Multicast Routing Protocols. PIM is covered in good detail along with Joining and troubleshooting.

Performance Management and Quality of Service - Performance management deals with switching modes and compression schemes. I would have liked to have seen some additional information regarding ways to increase performance but overall I was impressed with the detail of the information that is included. I specifically like the section that deals with determining the performance of the router. It introduces the reader to the show and debug commands that are the most useful in determining the performance of the device. The QOS section covers a wide variety of methods to control traffic. Knowing a great deal on the theory of QOS but lacking in the area of seeing the actual results of implementing QOS, I really enjoyed working through the two labs that are available.

BGP Theory and Configuration - With out a doubt the largest section of the book. Everything is covered from the basics to path attributes to reflectors and confederations. The advanced BGP section deals with filtering routes and creating routing policies by using path attributes. If you really want to learn BGP, the BGP sections are definitely for you.

CCIE Preparation Labs - This section contains five CCIE preparation labs that force you to apply everything that is covered in this book. The labs are great CCIE mock labs. These labs alone are worth the cost of the book.

The book includes a CD that contains all of the diagrams and solutions to the CCIE Preparation labs found in Chapter 10. This is a great addition because it allows you to print out the diagrams to make notes on as well as cut and paste the configurations if needed. The CD also includes sample chapters from other Cisco Press CCIE books.

I would have to say that this book would be a great addition to anyone's networking reference library. It will benefit someone who is pursuing the Cisco CCIE certification or someone who is just trying to implement the topics that are covered. The only item that I think is lacking is the performance management section. Additional methods of managing and increasing performance should have been included. Overall, the examples and illustrations are plentiful and well done, the content is well written, and the practice labs are useful. I would highly recommend.

CCIE Self Study: CCIE Practical Studies Volume II
Karl Solie, CCIE No. 4599
Leah Lynch, CCIE No. 7220
Cisco Press
ISBN: 1-58705-072-2

Finally we you can complement or we have a book that covers the new stuff on the CCIE lab exam since the last 2 updates on the 1 day lab.

The book has 6 main sections which cover:

Ethernet Switching with the Catalyst 3550
Network Propagation and Network Access with Route Maps and Policy Based Routing
Multicast Routing
Performance Management and Quality Of service
BGP
CCIE Lab examples

This book follows the same path as Volume one you will find practical example on the entire book but well link with the theory of every of the 6 main sections.

The Ethernet Switching part is covered on one chapter which covers the new and old configuration parameters you have find on the volume one. The theory covers in a very nice way to have a deep knowledge of it but in a very easy way to understand it.

On this chapter you will find two lab scenarios each of them describe the specific objectives, equipment needed and physical layout. I will recommend trying to solve the lab first by your own. Then as a check-up examine the walkthrough. This will help you to find your strong knowledge areas and which you need to workout in order to have a strong base for your CCIE quest.

Network Propagation and Network Access with Route Maps and Policy Based Routing this theme is cover on one chapter. I consider this theme a relative new one because it was cover just on BGP mainly, the examples and theory I found it very useful and very well explained. You will see the applications with IGP and BGP. The BGP examples are very well explained. You will find two lab scenarios which are very good examples of the application of this theme. If you do not know the theme my personal point of view is that you can learn the basic use and a little more. It will help you a lot on the CCIE roadmap.

Multicast is cover in one chapter. In recent years you link this theme to the idea of streaming video or audio on the network. The first time I work with multicast was with the first version of IP/TV. From that day till now it has growth very quickly with the inclusion of multimedia demand over the network.

The theory cover in the book is good but very basic and with a more practical focus to learn how it is configure and how it works on the three well developed labs.

Performance Management and Quality of Service is cover on 3 chapter's router performance management, integrated and differentiated services and QoS-Rate limiting and Queuing Traffic.

The first chapter is very useful to understand how to look for important information on the interface and solve layer 1 problems on a network, which will lead to solve quality problems which is the first step in deliver a QoS solutions on a network. ATM reading complements the Volume I reading and has a very good lab that focus on QoS. This chapter ends with a very good material about the Switching Modes that Cisco Routers use to forward traffic and determine paths for traffic.

The second chapter which covers integrated and differentiated service has two main themes RSVP and the ToS implementation of Cisco IOS to mark packets on layer 3 to deliver them according to the Cisco IOS Software ToS values. The new Differentiated Service field definition on the IP header is cover and you will find information about WRED all of this with a LAB scenario for each of the themes it has this chapter.

The third and last chapter covers the final stage for QoS which is a queuing mechanism for the specific traffic type you have in a network. So you will see the four basic queuing mechanisms and the explore the new and advanced technology: Generic traffic shaping, CBWFQ, Class-bases shaping, Traffic policing, Low Latency Queuing, Setting IP RTP priority and Committed access rate for traffic policy. This chapter will clear out all the theory and commands you see through it on the lab scenario you have.

The BGP part the last but not the least is cover in 3 chapters where you will see theory, basic and advanced configuration. The basic information from the complete book of BGP but not a substitute, if you know the theme it will help you clear out some of the dark spots of your knowledge on BGP.

The final part is the CCIE practice labs, good approach for the big CCIE LAB exam but not the ultimate material, you will need a complement.

Complementary material shown on the last part of each chapter will be helpful to get deeper knowledge about a theme and light up the dark spots of your knowledge on the different themes of the book.

Also you will find a CD with the solutions of the final chapter and applications that will help you during you preparation

From a scale from 1 to 10, 8 will be the grade for CCIE Practical Studies Volume II.

I congratulate the author for a tremendous effort to deliver more reliable material. I personally find more quality on this material than on the CCIE Practical Studies Volume I, hope we can have the second edition with the same quality the Volume II has.

CiscoPress's "CCIE Practical Studies - Volume II" by Solie and Lynch does a good job at preparing CCIE Routing & Switching candidates for the CCIE Lab. While this book picks up where Volume 1 left off, this volume does a much better job at both documenting and displaying some of the more advanced requirements of the lab. It is also important to note that this book should not be used to first introduce yourself to a topic. The book requires you to be familiar with the topics discussed.

The first chapter is a much needed resource on the 3550 Catalyst switch. Part 2 covers route-maps and policy-based routing. I felt the multicast section was weak but felt it was made up for in the section covering QoS. The last part is on BGP and an excellent companion to Doyle's coverage in his 2nd TCP/IP book. I would not recommend the labs at the back of the book - they are error prone.

I did find some typos or editorial errors in the book (but not nearly as many as in the first volume):

Page 389 - in the first sentence - the bandwidth should be 772 kbps - not 772 bps. There are actually multiple errors over the next few pages.

Page 566 - the last line of the first paragraph - "... then the ORIGIN value is type 3, Incomplete." The origin code is type 2 for incomplete.

Page 737 - the aggregate-address should have included the `as-set' command.

Weighing in at 1,000 pages, it will take time to properly digest this book. I'm really at a loss as to whether this is a 4 or 5 star book. But considering the depth and breadth of coverage, it is nonetheless a book that must be read before the CCIE R&S lab. Overall, I expect to find this book on many a CCIE's bookshelf.

I give this book 5 pings out of 5:
!!!!!

A CCIE candidate has to be very careful about the books he/she may select as a study guide. Most often, the two biggest problems about a CCIE study guide is either the material is extremely dated or the book itself is riddled with errors and is elementary on the topic it professes to educate the reader about. Thankfully, Karl Solie's CCIE Practical Studies Vol. II is neither of these.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of Solie's first CCIE Practical Studies. I was disappointed in other CCIE study guides, notably the earlier Hutnik/Saterlee "CCIE Lab Practice Kit". Practical Studies Vol. I, while having some dated material such as coverage of the Cat5xxx Series, provides an excellent treatment and foundation for Layer 2 protocols and IGPs. The labs at the end of the book were also of excellent quality.

I picked up CCIE Practical Studies in late December as a last minute addition to my CCIE prep library. I was scheduled to take the lab in February, and I anxiously awaited arrival. Needless to say, I was not disappointed! CCIE Practical Studies Vol. II coverage begins where Vol. I left off. The topics of focus include the Cat3550s, route-maps, multicast, and BGP. I found the chapters on BGP especially helpful. Upon completion of these chapters and labs, I had a much better grasp on BGP and the protocol's bells, whistles, and knobs. The appendix includes a great piece on prefix lists, an absolute must for any CCIE candidate. Finally, the labs at the end of the book were terrific, on par to many of the various "boot camp labs" available for purchase.

If I must provide one negative, it is that the author was inconsistent on providing IOS requirements needed to complete the labs. Sometimes Solie was kind enough to let me know I needed 12.2(T) or 12.3, and other times it was overlooked. As a result, during one lab, I needed to upgrade my IOS code and swap a router in the middle of my practice. A pain but, certainly not the end of the world.

As for my lab, I passed on February 26, 2004, CCIE #12932. I firmly believe that I would not have passed if not for Solie's wonderful treatment of BGP in CCIE Practical Studies Vol. II!

Whether you're chasing the improbable CCIE certification or building an advanced network, "CCIE Self Study: CCIE Practical Studies, Volume II" by Karl Solie and Leah Lynch, ISBN 1587050722 is a guide to several key topics along the way. More than just a CCIE study guide, this book balances test preparation and real world skills in an informative but easy-to-read book. Without a word of review from the first volume, the first chapter hits the street and it doesn't look back. In addition, detailed practice labs are interspersed with the subject material so the reader can "make permanent" the skills being covered.

Book Sections:

Advanced Switching, focusing on the Catalyst 3550
Route maps, Policy-based routing
Multicast Routing
Performance Management
Quality of Service
BGP Theory and Practice

Several of the chapters covered those elusive details that are never covered well enough in the documentation. The chapter on route maps and policy routing exposes the true flow of match statements and deny clauses, while the QoS chapter covers just the right amount to help the reader simulate live traffic through an RSVP-enabled network.

The BGP chapters (350 pages!) cover peer establishment troubleshooting (oh so important for the CCIE exam!) and the finer points of developing a large-scale network (not just the options, but the deciding factors and the ramifications thereof). Carefully separated into theory, practice, and advanced topics, the authors lead the reader steadily through design, implementation, and tuning topics. The CCIE exam requires the candidate to able to conquer all of these issues in rapid fashion, and the BGP chapters cover the relevant details with a solid structure and a clear vision.

After the topics are covered, the authors include five strong practice labs to challenge the candidate's study and knowledge. If the BGP chapters weren't worth the price tag themselves, these five labs add even more value for those pursuing the CCIE certification. Like the individual topic labs, these full "test" labs are written in a manner that can be adapted to a minimalist's home lab or a full complement of routers as outlined in the prestaging sections.

My first time through the book (with the practice labs postponed until later) took only two nights, and left me re-energized in my studies. Without tying up the reader with review of topics from Volume I or material found in other common titles, the authors get very deep on topics without making assumptions of the little things. No book (or editor?) is perfect, but the authors found a strong team of reviewers to give it their best shot. There's a minimum of errors and typos throughout the book, above the average for the twenty books I've read in the past six months.

If you're pursuing the CCIE leather jacket or fortifying your production network, this book is a welcome addition to your library. My only hope is that MPLS doesn't end up on the Routing & Switching exam (or the authors cover that topic soon)!

CCIE Practical Studies Volume II is the latest in the CCIE Practical Studies series. This book is not just intended for individuals who have completed the CCIE written test, but for anyone who has advanced knowledge of networking theory. The book assumes you already have an understanding of routing protocols, WAN technologies, and LAN switching. Each chapter includes a section on theory but primarily focuses on the configuration aspect ending with several lab scenarios. CCIE Practical Studies Volume II includes five complete lab scenarios including the solutions on CD-ROM. These five lab scenarios are in addition to the regular labs at the end of each chapter. This book will especially appeal to those working towards their CCNP or CCIE, but also for anyone who is looking for extensive configuration examples of ethernet switching (3550), network access and propagation control, multicast routing, QOS and performance management, and advanced BGP configuration.

Karl Solie and Leah Lynch do an excellent job of providing the user with a complete set of configuration examples within each chapter. Many books on the market focus on networking theory with basic configurations added to supplement the theory. Typically, the examples in other books are not very complex or useful for real world situations. CCIE Practical Studies Volume II provides the reader with complex solutions that more closely resemble the CCIE lab exam. In addition, the examples used in the book are more practical than those used in most books on the market. The majority of the exercises are easy to follow, but as I stressed in the first paragraph you should have a more advanced knowledge to understand the complete solution.

In addition to the extensive Lab examples used throughout the book, each author has proven to write their specific chapters in a clear, consistent manner. Lynch wrote the QoS and BGP chapters consisting of the second half of the book. Although the majority of the BGP section is well written and thorough, I expected to see more details and examples in the BGP route policy chapter. As far as the other authors, the beginning of the book has a very good section on Route Maps and Policy-Based Routing. All chapters are easy to read and include additional references for further reading. I would recommend reading additional titles by either of the primary authors of this book.

In summary, Solie and Lynch wrote a solid continuation of the CCIE Practical Studies series keeping on track with the CCIE lab outline. The book did not reveal any significant amount of errors as seen in other titles preparing you for the CCIE exam. As a result, you spent less time trying to understand the examples and correcting author's mistakes and more time learning what is required to pass the exam. Although this is not the only book you should use to prepare for when practicing labs in BGP, QoS, Multicast Routing, Advanced Switching, Route Map and Policy-Based Routing, it is an excellent resource. I would rate this book a 4 out of 5 and would recommend this book as a primary source when studying for the CCIE lab exam due to its extensive lab examples and explanations.

After just finishing my reading of the new book entitled "CCIE Practical Studies, Vol II" by Leah Lynch & Karl Solie (ISBN: 1-58705-072-2), I am reminded of just how far I've come and how far I need to still go to obtain the elusive CCIE badge of honor. The book layout is very easy to follow and read and covers many topics with great detail and readability. I have not read Vol I but after reading this one I'm sure it will be soon a part of my invaluable resources.
The target of this book is definitely not for the beginner trying to enter into the world of networking, and this is evident from the first chapter which delves into the newly introduced 3550 intelligent switch. Right from the get-go you are immersed into the world of VLAN's, STP/RSTP and different trunking methods. The two labs at the end of the chapter not only show you some capabilities of the new switch but they provoke you to think "how do I make this work", without spoon feeding you too much allowing you to learn not just read words.
Route Maps and Policy-Based routing was a chapter that finally made clear some things that had been fuzzy to me in the past. The illustrations were very well laid out and easy to follow, especially in the explanation of each map step. The labs were easy to follow and didn't require complicated equipment. The next chapter was a quick trip into the world of Multicast Routing and had four nice and compact labs that left me wanting to discuss this topic more in depth.
The next three chapters were the hard areas for me. I did enjoy the topics of ATM and learning the different class of service offerings but, the network management commands reminded me of some of the topics I found ho-hum from the CIT test. I did enjoy the refresher on the topics: Switching Modes, CEF and the different compression methods. The lab part that I wasn't able to fully absorb due to a lack of proper equipment was in the ATM area (doesn't everyone have an ATM switch at home?). Integrated and Differentiated Services was a spot that I did find informative in resolving network congestion, as we are all aware of the increasing demands placed upon network administrators. Qos and Traffic Shaping topics were presented in a way that gives the reader enough information to simulate a working environment.
Lastly BGP was explained in much detail and very thankfully so, as this topic is one I find comes easy to me. Although these chapters are where I found some typo's that had me reverting back to previous diagrams for clarity (AS related). I didn't have time to do these labs but I do plan to go back and finish them and the 5 CCIE practice labs at the end of the book. The Appendix's and accompanying CD were also very informative and useful tools.
This book is a must-have for anyone preparing for the challenges and rigors of the CCIE hands-on lab. I'm sure that it'll be by my side in the future as I tackle that "beast" and as a handy tool. I look forward to the next book by these authors.