Customer Reviews

CCNP Study Guide Kit

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

One thing I have learned over the past 14 years is that when you find something that works stick with it. I have found that Todd Lammle is the go to man for Cisco. I used both his CCNA and CCDA books to pass my exams and now that I am working on CCNP and CCDP I am once again looking to him for study guides.

Being that Cisco has retired the 640-603 exam, it was a good idea for Sybex to hold the release of this set until the 640-901 or BSCI or was ready, making the kit as up to date as possible.

Each book does have a number of labs, in fact the BSCI book has over 55, plus there are case studies, review questions and other exercises throughout each book. Lammle certainly gives you every thing you need to work with.

There is one thing that could be added and that is a simulator or virtual lab to work with in case you do not have access to the hardware. Although you could go to his website and pickup the Router Simulator CCNP Suite and Sybex also has their own Virtual Lab as well.

Each book comes with a cd that has 2 full practice exams and other handy study utilities like the PDA flash cards. If there was something to increase here it would be more practice questions or a test center for all exams.

I found that the books may have some errors but there isn't a book out there without a few grammar or spelling errors. As for technical accuracy, I compared the previous set to this set and a whole host of updates were done.

Overall Todd Lammle has once again proven to be right in the forefront of the Cisco Certification arena and this study guide kit is a shining example of his latest work. Excellent job and well done once again.

I just renewed my CCNP by redoing the current BSCI and BCMSN exams. I used to be a Sybex fan and I have used them alot but now I think that better material can be found elsewhere.

These Sybex books have alot of information but not everything necesssary to pass the exams. I think that there is a tendency to cut and paste from other books and not all errors have been corrected. Not all new material is fully covered. Switching gets the weakest coverage since there have been the most changes and additions to this technology.

I would recommend the Cisco Press Guides for both Routing and Switching as better choices. Also the BSMSN Exam Cram 2 guide by Richard Deale is very good for switching. The Sybex Switching guide spends time on CatOS even though it is not on the exam or in the books I recommend. Did I already say cut and paste?

I used this set to make a first pass through the material and then filled in the gaps and added depth with the other books mentioned. If you use this approach, skip the switching section completely and go straight to Cisco or to Richard Deale.

I have read through two of the books in this series and gone through all of the review questions at the end of the chapters as well as the tests on the CD's. Both of the tests that I took I failed on the first try. It was only after more study with Cisco Press books and other materials did I pass them.

These books do not teach you what the exams want. The BCMSN book is so poorly written that you could learn more by typing the question mark at the end of every command you type, because that's exactly what the author did. The CIT book was good, but still did not teach me what Cisco wanted me to know. I have used Lammles books before with success on the CCNA, but steer clear of this series.

You're better off paying the extra money for the Cisco Press books. I wish I had never made the decision to go the "cheap route" with this purchase.

FYI: I have a CCNA, CCDA, Citrix Certified Admin, and MCSE, so I am not inexperienced with what Cisco's requirements are for their tests nor with the whole certification process. You have been warned.

And not much else. The author tries to pack too much info into a single book. It did work for Lammle for the CCNA study guide. However, CCNP covers a lot more. For a recap of technologies this book is fine. If you are looking for a deeper coverage of routing protocols however, check out "Cisco IOS for IP Routing" by Andrew Colton (ISBN 0972286209). That book explains the mechanics of modern routing protocols, such as RIP, EIGRP, OSPF, IS-IS, and BGP in great detail.

I was quite unhappily surprised that, after reading the book for the BCSI exam, I was far from ready. I costed me quite a lot of extra work to properly prepare. Lots of topics are not covered and even worse with the BCMSN exam, where even more topics are not covered.

Very unsatisfactory!!

Without these books I would not have passed these tests. Excellent
coverage on the important subjects the test will cover. Great CDs
along with prep labs. Highly recommend it.