Customer Reviews

CCNP Video Mentor (Video Learning)

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

 

 

I picked up Kevin's Video mentor title when I was preparing for the rigors of the CCNP. I am familiar with other Cisco Press books but this was the first "video" product that I have used from them. I was pleased to see that all of the critical commands are outlined in the hardcopy text that accompanied the book. When I popped in the DVD I found it well organized, allowing me to focus in on topics specific to the exam of interest at the time. Having an expert like Kevin walk through all of the critical configurations gave me the knowledge I needed to then practice these on my own. I found the reference guide helpful as well, as I went out on my own gear and banged away with these commands. Having the chance to not only see the commands, but to also get solid training as to their usage via the DVD was critical to my learning. One by one I worked through the exams with the help of this DVD and found that I was very well prepared when it came time for each exam. The Cisco configurations that can be on the exams are one of the most challenging aspects of the exam process. Having the CCNP Video Mentor helped me to learn the critical commands necessary to succeed and gave me the resources I needed to practice these again and again. I really could not have done nearly as well as I did on these configuration tasks without the CCNP Video Mentor!

I bought the video mentor hoping it would help get me back on track with my CCNP studies. I've been studying off and on for over a year on my CCNP while actively doing in-depth networking during my day job.

First the negatives: there isn't much meat to this study guide. 5 hours for $50+ just doesn't cover it. I paid about half that through my Cisco Press discount and I still feel cheated. The CCNP is so much more detailed than what 5 hours can possibly cover. I've seen CCNA video study guides that 40 hours or more in length. 5 hours to cover a single test really isn't enough in my opinion. I've taken the BSCI twice and didn't pass it either time. The first was due to lack of studying all the relevant IGPs (I never imagines that a full 1/3 of the test would be nothing but EIGRP! I'm much more of an expert IS-IS, BGP and OSPF by far so I bombed the EIGRP portion quite thoroughly). The second failure was due to lack of study time in the weeks leading up to my scheduled retake. Having seen the test twice I can say with absolute certainty that the material covered in Lab 1, which was little more than basic EIGRP, wouldn't be enough answer the EIGRP questions correctly.

That brings me to my second gripe. The test material that was covered is more on par with entry-level CCNA material than CCNP material. Sure the MQC labs touched on some more advanced material like the LFI lab but the overwhelming majority of the material is the basic fundamentals at most. I feel in no way prepared to go back and take the new CCNP courses based on these videos. Either the material is way too basic or I'm really good, much more so than I think I am. This DVD is more like an Intro to the video mentor that mistakenly took on some of the more CCNA topics.

My last gripe is on the use of the SDM in a couple of the labs. I haven't taken any of the new CCNP tests since they revised them this past winter. However I seriously doubt if they use the SDM for any of it. I really didn't get anything out of the SDM sections which covered configuring an IPSec L2L tunnel as well as going through the basic router hardening processes. I believe the IOS firewall section also relied on the SDM. I really got nothing from those sections. We didn't even get a good look at the config that the SDM applied.

As far as my positive remarks: Kevin really did do a wonderful job of presenting the material. He clearly went out of his way to thoroughly explain what he was doing and why. For me it was too much hand-holding but I can easily see where others would need that level of quality attention. Kevin did an excellent job of presenting the material that they gave him to present. I would love to have had him present all the material that I thought should have been included.

The video was edited pretty well. It did cut off the last few seconds of each video which might not be noticeable in some cases and in others it clipped a few of Kevin's words. I do however wish they'd done something else with the video player. There isn't an installer for the content on the DVD. You can copy it to your hard drive if you want. Otherwise it will spin up the DVD drive every few seconds to cache a few more seconds of the video. Ideally the content would either be installed to disk or the player would cache much more of the content at once. I also wish the presentation had been more than a single screen. I would have liked to have had the opportunity to refer back to the network diagram from each lab during a configuration stage without having to rewind the video. Something more akin to the online training on the CPN pages or the Partner E-Learning site would have been more useful.

So, overall it's an alright product. It won't cover much of the CCNP material but I don't fault Kevin for that. For the price it's probably not a worthwhile purchase, especially for only 5 hours of material. The content is well-presented though. I would definitely buy any of Kevin's future works.

The material that is covered is presented well. Unfortunately, there is just not enough material covered to justify the price. The videos are packaged in a single non-copy protected DVD. There is room for more than 2 GB of additional content. This would be a much better product if Cisco Press would use this space to deliver more content!

I really wanted to say WICKED but very good will do. My consulting firm had to put an outdoor 50 micron Multi-Mode Fiber between two buildings (Central Admin and Jail/Police Department) with multiple cisco sytems switches in place to replace the aging wireless link. A Mitel VOIP switch existed at the Central Admin site and VOIP phones existed at the jail/police site. We needed to trunk over the fiber, add multiple vlans, and fast-etherchannel in the building between a catalyst 2950 and 2960 (lack of fiber in the building). All are covered in the video! We had catalyst 3550s at the Central Admin site. The video is geared for the 3550s but you can easily adapt to the 2900 series. If you see my earlier review on the Tut Systems SHDSL modem you will understand this next part. The Tut runs 3 miles over copper. I made a port a routed port on the 3550 and ran that over the Tut solution (actually at two sites). ALL OF THIS IS IN THE VIDEO! What more can you say? I made my team watch this video 4 or 5 times before we completed each step. You can't go wrong with this video. It's not all of the CCNP stuff as it says, but the real-world stuff is AWESOME! Buy it.

This product does not have enough in-depth knowledge to pass the CCNP. Don't waste your time trying to study with this. This might be ok for the CCNA.

--John

CCNP VIDEO MENTOR holds over five hours of personal video instruction on CCNP configuration tasks: while not a pick for the casual computer user or non-CCNP programmer, it will prove CCNP visual instruction perfect for any who plan on using CCNP in configuration processes. From lab setup and device addressing to traffic flows, network operations, routers and more, any facing the CCNP exam must have this package. It's a top pick highly recommended for either self instruction or college-level classrooms.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch