Customer Reviews

CCNP SWITCH 642-813 Official Certification Guide (Exam Certification Guide)

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I just took and failed the new 642-813 exam primarily based on study with this book, a lot of lab work with actual Cisco equipment and practice exams, including the exam on the CD in the book and the Ex-Sim Max exams (which "guarantee" you'll pass the test if you can pass them). In the past, for other Cisco tests, I've found the Official Certification Guides to be very comprehensive and provide almost more material than you need to past the tests. However this guide is not a good representation of what's on the test (or practice exams) and vice versa. I went into the test feeling extremely confident and ended up guessing on many questions and the simulation questions where much more difficult than those found on the BCMSN test. I'm an MCSE, CCNA and ITIL certified IT professional who has been working in this field for over 15 years, and I've never felt so prepared for a test and then performed so poorly on the actual exam. I'm not saying don't buy this book, I'm just saying do NOT depend on it to give you the material you need to pass the exam. This should NOT be the Cisco Official Exam Certification Guide.

Dan Allen, MCSE, CCNA, IPPI

Dave Hucaby is a great writer and has done a tremendous job explaining the material in the book, however, this book alone will not prepare you for the exam. There are topics missing from the book, which you can find at Dave's blog at [...] or at the cisco press website here [...] located under the download link.

You can check out the blog posts at the url below for more information

[...]

The bottom line is Cisco did a lousy job writing the Switch exam and didn't match the exam to the topics or verbiage covered in the book. I have been told that if you study for the ROUTE exam first you have a better chance of passing the switch exam since some of the material is redundant. Many of these issues are being reported to Cisco so it's only a matter of time before they change some of the exam questions to better match the book.

I studied out of this book to prepare myself for the 642-813 exam, but when I went to take the exam I found that much of what the exam focuses on is not included in the book or is just lightly touched upon. All in all it has some great information for configuring and troubleshooting a network, but if you are looking for a study aide for the test I would look somewhere else.

This is a good book, with good information, but it's not enough to pass the SWITCH exam. If you can manage to pass SWITCH and then move on to studying TSHOOT, you will quickly see that much of the material for the SWITCH exam is covered in the TSHOOT guide. It's as if you need to read both SWITCH and TSHOOT certification guides to study for the SWITCH exam, ... which might not be the worst thing, since you'll have to study both anwyay.

I purchased this book and the associated lab manual after I had already purchased a third party book and lecture video training set, as well as a computer training course. The other materials were more expensive, and left me more confused than anything. The lab work was also inadequate for the other materials. However, this book (along with the lab manual) clarified everything for me. I am going to use exclusively Cisco Press materials from now on, and will not waste my time or money on other programs. This book allowed me to grasp the core concepts involved I am happy to say, after reading the book cover to cover and performing the lab work in the excellent lab manual that is written to perfectly accompany this book, i was able to pass the SWITCH exam on my first attempt. The lab work is perhaps the most important key to this exam, and nothing can come close to first hand experience with real equipment.

About 2 months ago I received from Pearson (via Jamie Adams, @jamieadams76) a hardcover copy of the Official Certification Guide for the CCNP SWITCH test.

Once I got it, I got the feeling that I wasn't going to finish studying this book... seemed to me it was so dense and difficult to understand. But when you get to read and study, it is great and reading is very straightforward.

The book is organized in an orderly-fashioned way. It gets you to understand what type of challenge will you face and the strategy to get though it. I think it is great because you also learn to plan how to study and focus in the most important concepts and ideas.

The "Key Topic" indication is very useful. This indicates that the concepts you are reading are fundamental in the developed topic and must be kept in mind for the test.

I liked also the configuration examples: networking is an applied job and it is necessary to get your hand dirty and enter commands in a console. Best practices are also given.

The author makes special emphasis (at the beginning and at the end of each chapter) in the key commands and concepts. The self assessment questions are useful to test what you know and gives the page number in the book where the answer is. Very intuitive and saves you time in case you don't know the answer.

The CD-ROM provides useful documents, videos and a simulation of some exam-type questions.

I recommend the book as a way to gain knowledge about concepts and get a better idea about protocols and the way they works. Nonetheless I suggest to practice in a real-world switch, creating topologies and developing labs. I believe the concepts get much clearer and understandable as soon as you configure and see the protocol working.

If you are preparing for the Cisco Switch Exam then you should not use this book as your primary source. It is lacking in theory and examples that will help you master the exam.

No .pdf file is included with this book and the "Free" online copy does not allow downloading unless you pay for it AGAIN!

I purchased this book for my CCNP SWITCH test studies, and did not get enough from it for the test. It was very informational in introducing technologies, however it did not go in depth about the technology. With the book being half the size of the ROUTE book do not be fooled, the SWITCH test does not contain half the material as the ROUTE test. The ROUTE book just does a better job of explaining the material and providing you with testing commands. I would definately recommend reading this book for the test, however you will need either real world experience for this test, or to do labs outside of reading the book to succeed.

Not a bad book, but it's missing critical information that is on the exam.

1) Wireless, needs at least 3 more chapters on wireless

2) 4500/6500 series switches, hardly touches them

3) labs, lacks labs to reinforce your learning. You end up spending another $40 on lab books.