Customer Reviews

CCNP Certification Library (CCNP Self-Study 642-801, 642-811, 642-821, 642-831) (3rd Edition) (CCNP study guides)

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Once you have achieved the CCNA certification, your natural path points toward the Cisco Certified Network Professional certification. This title from Cisco Press is a set consisting of one book for each of the four exams specific to the CCNP certification. This set includes the following books:

--CCNP BSCI Exam Certification Guide, Third Edition, by Claire Gough
--CCNP BCMSN Exam Certification Guide, by David Hucaby
--CCNP BCRAN Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, by Brian Morgan and Craig Dennis
--CCNP CIT Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, by Amir S. Ranjbar

This set, covering diverse topics in significant detail, is an excellent CCNP preparation tool. The material in the books focuses on Cisco's published objectives for the CCNP exams, and covers them well. The longest and most unique book in this collection is the volume on routing (BSCI). It's structured to cover the objectives for the 642-801 exam using several tools common to all the books in the set-namely detailed but highly readable text, graphical, tabular, and router configuration examples, Q&A and "Do I Know This Already?" quizzes, and the bundled CDROM. The graphics are first-rate and illustrate key concepts clearly.

What sets the BSCI book apart from the others in the set, and other Cisco Press books I've read, is the series of lab exercises at the end of each chapter. The BSCI labs provide comprehensive scenarios that take in all the concepts taught in each chapter, in step-by-step form. Answers are provided following each example so that you can check your work. This book is particularly well-suited to self-study. This level of detail and the inclusion of labs is key, since in my opinion, the CCNP routing exam (642-801) is the most difficult one in all of Cisco's Professional-level certifications. It's appropriate that the routing book, at 950 pages, contains about a third of the pages of the entire set!

The labs in the routing book cover concepts that Cisco hits hard on the exam questions and simulations, including OSPF, BGP and IS-IS. You'll need a fair amount of Cisco equipment to do the lab work, but it's obtainable on-line and is worth the investment if you want to do well on the exams and really understand the topics. For a book of this size, the routing text is remarkably consistent and error-free. Although I found a few minor errors here and there, the book is well-suited to self-study-in part because it is so accurate. The overall structure and content of this book make it the strongest learning tool I've seen for the BSCI exam.

Although the other three books in the set don't include this comprehensive level of configuration exercises, they do provide some scenario-based material to reinforce concepts.

All the texts are good for instructor-led training, or as a text for web-based training. Although the other three books are all significantly shorter than the routing text, they share many of the excellent traits that makes this set such a strong preparation tool for the CCNP certification exams. I tried to use Exam Cram 2 texts in addition to this Cisco Press set while preparing for the BSCI and BCMSN exams, and quickly found that the Cisco Press set offers by far the clearest, most easily digested, error-free and relevant information.

Each book in this set comes with a CD that contains a high-quality practice exam engine (sourced by Boson), as well as the PDF text of the book and some sample material from other Cisco Press titles. I found the CDs very useful-especially the test engines, since a key part of studying for certification exams that are as difficult as Cisco's CCNP exams is assessing what you've learned and how well you can apply it. The self-tests include questions of each type that appear on the exams, including basic simulation-type questions that are probably best called scenarios; they don't have the look and feel of an actual router or switch interface during configuration, as the exams do. They do, however, show you clearly whether you understand the command syntax and topics being covered. The practice test questions are harder and less forgiving, overall, than what's on the exams. I found that if I could make 75% or better on the sample tests, my scores were significantly better on the CCNP exams.

The weakest book in this set is the CIT text, which sticks strictly to Cisco's published objectives for the exam. As such, it's a bit simplistic and doesn't exercise your mind much when it comes to troubleshooting for results-it's oriented toward procedure rather than outcome. The author lets you know to expect this going in, and I appreciated his honesty. The three scenarios offered at the end of the book are rather weak; I was hoping for substantial troubleshooting exercises. But all of the topics on the CIT exam are fully covered in this book.

The BCMSN and BCRAN books are both excellent long-term references, along with the BSCI text, and cover not only the core topics of the exams but also a lot of information useful to networking people after the exams are distant memories. This trait is the core strength of this set. The layout, graphics, quality writing and editing, and extra learning tools make for an outstanding value. Overall, I can't recommend this set highly enough. The highly motivated learner will find everything in this set that's needed to pass the CCNP exams. That said, however, it is important to have either professional experience, a set of readily available routers and switches, or both, to make it over the CCNP hurdles.

These books have a prominent place on my bookshelf at work and at home. I have two sets because I think the books are that good. Anyone interested in networking at the geek level of detail will be well-served by this set.

Overall, thought the BCMSN was best, then BSCI, then BCRAN, then CIT.


BCMSN is an excellent book, well written and comprehensive. It some nice practice scenarios at the end that are tough and really test your knowledge. Almost everything on the exam was in the book.


BCSI book is also excellent. There are nice practice scenarios at the end of each chapter that test your knowledge. It's a thick book (~900 pages!) and there were very few unpleasant surprises on the exam. Only quibble is that the ISIS chapters could've been easier to understand.


BCRAN is good, but there are a few holes. In particular, there are 2 topics that are woefully inadequate for the exam. Also, no practice scenarios.


CIT is definitely the weakest. It's the shortest book, unnecessarily IMO. It pretty much assumes that you remember all of the "show" and "debug" commands from the previous 3 tests (plus the CCNA) and doesn't really give any examples. The three practice scenarios (only 3 scenarios for a troubleshooting exam!!!) are so-so and there aren't enough of them. To pass the CIT, you definitely need supplmentary materials.

Cisco Press has re-issued the complete Certification Library in a Third Edition. These four books cover:
BSCI Exam 642-801
BCMSN Exam 642-811
BCRAN Exam 642-821
CIT Exam 642-831
which are the current versions of the exams as listed on Cisco's web site (November 8, 2005).

The set of four books contains updated copies of:
CCNP Self-Study CCNP CIT Exam Certification Guide
CCNP Self-Study CCNP BSCI Exam Certification Guide
CCNP Self-Study CCNP BCRAN Exam Certification Guide
CCNP Self-Study CCNP BCMSM Exam Certification Guide. It includes four companion CD-ROMs that contain test banks with a total of more than 800 practice questions.

Although this is a somewhat intimidating amount of material, buying it in a bundle like this gives you everything you need in one storage box and at a good cost savings over buying the books separately.

I ordered these 4 books because i was going for my CCNP, however after a little while (during a 2 month period) CCNP got upgraded to a newer version, still not to be disappointed i read both sets of CCNP, old one and the new one. Took the 4 new exams, passed them all, extremely happy with the results! In my opinion old CCNP books are valuable and a lot of help because the CIT and BCRAN books/exams are not in the new CCNP course and also some things of old BCMSN (like SPAN) just got removed and it's a shame really.. What happens if an employer asks you about SPAN and you know nothing about it because the new BCMSN course does not cover it? Uh oh.. That's right! Better be prepared.

It was one of the best self-study books and of course, from an online service that is best in service and delivery.

I bought the CCNP Certification Library for recertifying my CCNP and CCDP. I have just finished reading the BSCI book. Although the book has some up-to-date information such as IS-IS, there are a lot of typing errors which I hope Cisco Press will fix in the second edition.