Customer Reviews

CCNP: Routing Study Guide Exam 640-503 (With CD-ROM)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I saw some good reviews, so I bought the book. Then I learned why most reviews are worthless: too many people have been taught, "if you don't have anything nice to say . . .." I scored 900+ on the two CCNP exams I've taken so far (Switching and Support), so I have some idea of the sort of detail that is included in them. I have taken Cisco's routing course (BSCN), and reviewed Cisco's own materials. And I have plenty of hands-on; network engineering, mostly with Cisco equipment, is what I do. So let me tell you: this book is *hideous*. It is stunningly lacking in essential detail. Mr. Lammle, or anyone else for that matter, should be embarrassed to put his name on it. There is far less hyperbole in this review than you might suspect. This book leaves out far too much of what's in the course, in Cisco's own materials, what Cisco TELLS you is on the exam, and what you need to perform routing tasks effectively. This is more of a routing *pamphlet* than a "book."

Why two stars instead of one? This book could be of some use as a "starter" text for the novice before going to the actual Cisco course or reading the Cisco Press books. Some of the beginning chapters in particular provide a good review of basic concepts. (But then, the "novice" shouldn't be aiming at a CCNP exam.)

But to do well on the CCNP exam, and *certainly* to become skilled at routing tasks, I couldn't advise you more strongly to spend your money elsewhere.

I know. Everyone hates "negative" reviews. But love them or hate them, sometimes they're the truth.

To make a long story short, do not get this book unless you already understand OSPF, EIGRP, and BGP. I work w/ EIGRP and OSPF so the chapters on those were decent (b/c I already know them). But the chapters on BGP were awful. I read them twice and still didn't understand what it was saying. At this point I went to the Cisco web site and printed out the white paper on BGP and read it. That made sense. Buy the book for brief overviews on the topics, but nothing more.

The book is great. Be warned that it is not lite reading ,you will need to have an basic understanding of routers if you want to get anything out of it. Think of it as studying a college algebra book. If you have an understanding of math you will be ok if you dont know basic math you will get frustrated and slam the book. I use it in conjuction with the Cisco Press book to convert what they say into plain english. Todd and his group did a good job. But they can't spoon feed this stuff, you got to gear up and study.

I have just returned from sitting the 640-503 exam; I scored 701 which is very borderline and am still very confused.

I used this book & nothing else for the exam and was scoring 95 to 100 percent on all the bonus, random and practice exams in this book; however this did not prepare me for the morning surprise I got!!!Beware!!!

The questions on the paper were very different and required a lot thought (and gambling). I would advise that you get a good understanding from the book and use lateral thinking!!. Having excelled at MCSE and CCNA levels with very high scores (85-95%) this paper was a leveller. Read (snd understand) EIGRP, BGP and OSPF very well. Don't let anyone discourage you about experience et all. Use your own instinct and understanding. GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!

Lammle's and friends CCNP Routing Study Guide discuss everything you need to pass and ace the Cisco 640-503 exam, whats more there's a lot of configuration and debugging example on every routing protocol that is covered in the exam (i.e. OSPF, BGP, EIGP, etc.) and they even give you one chapter to refresh your memory about IP addressing and subnetting, which you should already know when you took the CCNA 2.0 exam. The only problem I found in this book is that it seems they rushed the production of this material. It's not fair to pay USD49.99 for a book with a lot of "typos" problem. If your not planning to take the exam now, wait for the second edition of this book.

I just finished reading this book the second time very carefully. The book flows well up until Chapter 7,8,9 where BGP is introduced and taught. At this point the coverage becomes unorganized and 'choppy'. The style of these chapters indicates poor mastery of these components by the author(s).

However this book is a good value because of the Sybex test engine that includes several hundred questions. Surprisingly, some of the test bank answers have better and more extended explainations that the text itself! Unfortunately, I feel I will need to buy Cisco's book to understand the test concepts well enough.

The other reason why this book is a good value is because it makes for a good introduction to other routing concepts for those with little hands-on. Todd Lammle's organization does offer a routing simulator that I purchased for getting some hands-on which has helped take up some learning slack this book leaves. It's affordable and a good alternative for those of us that can't practice on routers. It can be found at routersim.com.

For all us Lammle lovers, who passed the CCNA with his book, this book turns out to be a serious let down. I passed my CCNA reading Todd Lammle is book and didn't have second thoughts buying this product for CCNP. I was in for a big surprise, I realize that Todd, has a tendency to over simplify the stuff for beginners and therefore was better suited to write for CCNA. Not only there are typos in this book but it also lacks in depth explanation and has little insight to any topic covered.

Mr. Lammle Has done it again with another great book. This book as all the tools to make you pass the grueling CCNP Routing Exam. It covers all areas step by step including all high level protcols such as BGP, EIRGP,OSPF. Moreover what seperates this book from the rest is the hands on lab which can be performed using the routingsim software sold seprately. One Piece of advice buy the ccnp routing sim software. Its well worth the money since its impossible to pass the exam unless you have hands on exprience with Cisco IOS.

Unlike the CCNA book published by the same author, the Sybex CCNP Routing book was not helpful in preparing for the Cisco exam. The book had an abundance of errors, especially relating to BGP (Chapters 7,8,9). The book also skimmed over EIGRP, which was covered heavily in the exam.

This book was excellent for a general overview of Routing concepts and basic configuration; the exam I saw asked for a level of detail that the Sybex book didn't cover. (I took the exam in June of 2001, got an 839) Be sure you know redistribution well, or the exam will give you trouble...also know your command line, the exam will try to fool you with a drop-down list of commands that look similar.