Customer Reviews

CCSP Self-Study: Cisco Secure Virtual Private Networks (CSVPN) (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having passed Cisco Exam 642-511 this morning with a score of 878, I would defiantly recommend this book. However, this book alone will not guarantee you a pass, the book is well written but does not cover all the exam topics, there a few questions on my exam which were not covered in this guide. I have given this book an overall rating of 4 stars and with the use of Cisco on-line documentation you should be able to gain enough knowledge the exam.

The Cisco Press "CCSP Self-Study: Cisco Secure Virtual Private Networks" is the Cisco Authorized self study book for the CSVPN Exam 642-511 (ISBN: 1587051451). I personally used this book as my primary study resource for the CSVPN Exam, which I passed with flying colors (934/1000), thanks in most part to this book.

The book format mirrors the CSVPN class format. The first chapter is nearly identical to all the other CCSP courses, discussing the general principles of network security, including types of threats and attacks. The opening chapter also reviews the fundamentals of VPNs and IPSec, which should be a review for those readers who have already passed the SECUR exam.

Chapter 2 jumps right in the meat of the course material, with an introduction to the 3000 Series VPN Concentrators. Subsequent chapters walk the reader through setting up the VPN Concentrators, from Quick Configuration mode, through complex configuration scenarios using Preshared Keys, Digital Certificates, Load Balancing, and Redundancy. Additional topics also cover the 3002 Hardware Client as well as the Cisco VPN Software Client.

The book does a terrific job presenting the material. Each chapter includes numerous screen shots relating to that chapter's specific topic. In fact, I was able to replicate many of the example configurations in my home lab.

The book obviously does not cover the latest Concentrator Release 4.7. While it is probably too soon to expect Cisco to begin testing the new 4.7 features (such as SSL VPNs), the student is advised to check www.cisco.com for the latest exam roadmap. As mentioned earlier, I highly recommend this book for any student preparing for the CSVPN Exam 642-511. Every question that I encountered in the exam was covered in "CCSP Self-Study: Cisco Secure Virtual Private Networks". When Cisco does begin testing 4.7 features, the student should be able to easily augment this text with additional information from [...].

I bought this book because when I started my new job, I inherited two cisco vpn concentrators. After working with the concentrators for several months and had a good handle on how to create new L2L vpn's, remote access groups, etc., I bought this book. I was looking for a good detailed book that would explained the individual settings within vpn's, groups, etc. This book was not it. It does a good job of covering the concentrator at a 30k ft level, but it lacked the detail that would be useful in a production environment. This may be a sufficient book to pass the exam (I wouldn't know since I've never attempted the exam), but did not meet my expectations as a "go to" book for explaining the details. So if you're looking for a book to explain the basics for exam prep, then I would give this 4.5 stars, but as a reference source, I can only give it 3 stars. I think this book is marketed as a good exam guide and not a "nuts-n-bolts" book, so I think I may have had wrong expectations for this book.