Customer Reviews

Implementing Cisco IP Switched Networks (SWITCH) Foundation Learning Guide: Foundation learning for SWITCH 642-813 (Foundation Learning Guides)

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

 

 

Overall, I find that this book is helpful in studying for the 642-813 exam, but it is riddled with errors. It is helpful in learning the concepts in each chapter, but not trustworthy in the details. I have spent a lot of time correcting command syntax for example. There are also obvious typos, and I don't trust the review question answers without double checking against another source. In a way, I suppose it should help me be better prepared for the exam by doing this extra work, but I would rather the book be more reliable.

I've got several certs including CCNA, BCNE, Security+ and have read/used dozens of books to get them. This is by far the worst book I've ever come across in terms of the number of errors. I'm talking typos, misspellings, bad grammar, wrong use of language, broken English, errors in labeling of diagrams, etc, etc. It appears as though it was written by a 12-year old Malaysian kid that barely speaks English (no offense to 12-year old Malaysian kids).

I'm on chapter 6 and have stopped marking the errors in my book. I've found literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these mistakes. Some errors are easy to identify and move on without affecting your understanding of what you're reading. But when there are errors in labeling of diagrams including IPs, port numbers, and VLAN numbers, how do I know if it is a typo or if my understanding is off and the diagram is correct?? It gets frustrating.

It is starting to make me doubt the credibility of the authors. One would think that one of the world's largest and most respected hi-tech companies could put out a decent book. COME ON CISCO PRESS...YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS!

Competition breeds excellence and a lack thereof breeds mediocrity. I think since there are so few other books on the subject, they can put out a POS and no one will squawk.

The actual content is good and informative...which I guess is the important thing and the reason I give it 3 stars. But Gee whiz, it is hard to get past multitude of errors.

Looks like each of the author individual chapters. There is not flow to them; each chapter is written differently. Most of them are cut and paste from Cisco's web site. But if you think the copy/paste is worse, they have written on what they have understood about it on some chapters which makes it much worse.

Based on the way they have written it looks like they are not from the field. There are no research or practical approach to anything. Topics like SNMP, RADIUS servers proves that they have just read document online and wrote the chapters.

Worst book

I'm not sure how this book can get 4 or 5 starts from some of the reviewers. It's riddled with errors, including providing incorrect answers to the review questions. You cannot rely on the information in this book so do yourself a favor and get ANY other material to prepare for the CCNA.

This book contains huge amount of information, more than you expect from 500-pages book. This is good and this is bad simultaneously. Good, because you'll get everything you need for certification or online academy course in one not-so-heavy book. Bad, because there is not much details.

Comparing to Implementing Cisco IP Routing (ROUTE) Foundation Learning Guide: Foundation learning for the ROUTE 642-902 Exam (Self-Study Guide) this book very rarely explain commands syntax (and for several topics doesn't provide commands at all) and doesn't highlight significant lines in command output. Moreover, this book isn't edited as well, as you probably expect: there are plenty of misprints and even some errors. Hopefully, this will be corrected in the 2nd edition.

In my opinion, this is a nice book for those, who want to get an overview of existing technologies, and for those, who already know the topic and want to actualize their knowlege. Others probably need some help form other resoures (this book suggest [...]). If you have access to Cisco Online Academy's BMSN course, this will be a perfect solution.

This is a review of Implementing Cisco Switched Networks (SWITCH) Foundation Learning Guide. Written by CCIE's Richard Froom CCIE# 5102 and Erum Frahim CCIE# 7549 and Balaji Sivasubramanian.

This is an excellent book on switching fundamentals. It clearly explains VLAN's, how and where to use them. How the old 80/20 rule is now 20/80. Security topics regarding VLAN's, DHCP snooping, port security, PVLAN's and much more. The authors go deep into each topic and have a great way of explaining them while highlighting the important facts.

You pick up little tidbits like ICMP redirects being turned off on HSRP enabled interfaces, or the maximum number of supported VLAN's via ROAS (router on a stick) is 50, or that the number of SVI's isn't directly proportional to the number of VLAN's supported on your switch. Who knew?

These are the kinds of info that makes this book a gem, and I think going to be an extremely popular book. I have other switching books and they all seem to just go through the motions.

I think switching and layer 2 in general are underrated. Layer 3 and routing always seems to get the limelight. But you need a properly working layer 2 for layer 3 to function. If this book isn't on your bookshelf, get it!

If you think you know everything about VLAN's, or PVLAN's or VACL's, this book might teach you something new. There's also a kindle version that's about $5 cheaper than the hardcover.

Although it's written to follow the 642-813 format, this shouldn't be passed over if you're not studying for the certification.

Brandon Kim
[...]

Frankly, the more I read this book, the less I thought it was helping me focus on the CCNP switch test. As per most the other reviews, the book is riddled with errors.

I bought the kindle version and glad I did, at least I did not spend the full hardcopy amount for it.

So I have been through almost every Cisco academy class there is and I am a current CCNP, when I am going to sit for a Cisco certification exam I hit these books hard! This book just wasn't quite what I hoped it would be, I found it extremely difficult to get through even though it had good technical information. There just wasn't enough real world examples included. It may be because I was spoiled on Wendell Odom's ROUTE books but I just didn't find this to be an easy read and I didn't have high hopes since the material is already pretty deep stuff.

I will say that the self-assessment questions were good stuff and I believe I may have even seen a couple very similar questions on the cert exam. I think Cisco sometimes grabs a few questions here and there from their learning guides.

I think you should probably pick this book up if you are going through the academy but if you are self-studying, I think you can probably find better material out there. This book does a good job explaining the technical parts but some readers may have a hard time working this information into the scenario based questions that make up a good portion of the exam.

The book is more than just material for passing an exam. There is good background about the theory of network configuration and routing. So the text can be read usefully as a germane descriptor of contemporary network design, even if you do not need or want to take the exam.

A vital idea in the book is the migration from networks built using Layer 2 devices to those for Layer 3. Cisco now has Layer 3 switches of comparable performance to Layer 2 elements. The key difference is that Layer 3 switching can use the IP addresses in the packet. Better yet are Layer 4 and 7 switches, which, unsurprisingly, Cisco also offers. The Layer 4 switch can access the port number in TCP or UDP packets, as an extra filtering criterion. While a Layer 7 switch goes further by being able to dig into the payload itself for more embedded data, like whether http or https or ssh is being used. Unlike the Layer 3 switches, the book does not seem to claim that the Layer 4 or 7 switches are as fast as the Layer 2 switches. Unsurprising, given the potentially more extensive processing of each packet implied by the higher layers.

Chapter 3 goes well into the various spanning tree algorithms now implemented by Cisco. But maybe Chapter 6 is the most useful. It explains how to secure a large campus network. Where an attacker can often easily gain physical access to the wired or wireless portions. Various attacks are mooted, Leading to effects like Denial of Service or, more insidiously, a Man In The Middle insertion. The book's countermeasures include physically securing the switches and routers. Then, numerous software steps are available using Cisco firmware to detect rogue machines on a network segment. While "campus" is not restricted to a literal university campus, in practice the latter might indeed be a vast source of network weaknesses, given the diverse student population that has proximity and access to the network.

Best book so far i have ever come across in Cisco Networking, highly based on Designing and Implementing Cisco modern network.

Well written style and indepth explanation, not only usefull for the CCNP exams but for real world networking design and deployment.

Great book for Modern Cisco Network Design and Deployment !!!!!