Preparing for the practical portion of the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) examination, in which you have to configure and troubleshoot networks on Cisco equipment in a testing lab, can be scary. There's simply so much the test proctor can throw at you, and you have to be prepared for it all.
CCIE Practical Studies, Volume I does a fantastic job of preparing you for much of what you can expect to see on the first day of your CCIE lab exam (when you build a system to specifications). Karl Solie, a CCIE himself, first approaches each subject on the CCIE syllabus with a quick academic overview ("Here's what frame relay is for," for instance, "and here's how Cisco equipment thinks of it"). That gives way to a series of examples ("Here's a typical set of customer requirements, and here are the IOS commands and configuration files that satisfy them"). Finally, a series of subject-specific lab exercises (which are shorter than a typical day-long CCIE assignment) drill you on the Cisco skills related to the technology at hand. Solie explains how he'd solve the lab--in wonderful detail--immediately after the pages that describe these small lab tasks.
At the end of the book, you'll find five full-scale CCIE labs, very similar to the ones you'll have to complete in 8.5 hours on test day. There are instructions on how to prestage your equipment (as the exam proctor would normally do), and what you need to accomplish. You can time yourself on these labs and get a very good idea of your preparedness. Solie could make the next edition of this book better by devoting even more discussion to the troubleshooting techniques appropriate to different kinds of systems. Problems inevitably crop up in CCIE configurations, and there's rarely time to start over in the lab. Regardless, provided you have the equipment and discipline required to work through his exercises independently, this book is a better deal than almost any commercial training course.
--David Wall Topics covered: Some of the subjects you should be prepared to exhibit practical knowledge of when you go in for the CCIE practical exam, including the main WAN protocols (frame relay, PPP, ISDN, and ATM); routing protocols (RIP-1, RIP-2, IGRP, EIGRP, and OSPF); bridging; Data Link Switching Plus (DLSw+); access lists; network address translation (NAT); Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP); and time protocols. Other CCIE subjects, including IPX, BGP, and IPSec, are to be covered in the second volume of this book.
Customer Reviews & Comments
I have used several ccie lab preps and books but have never come across anything as good as this one. I just wish it had come out a few months earlier, so I would have more time to pratice the labs. The book is jam packed with numerious exercises and several ccie day-one-type labs at the end of the book for practicing the real lab. There are diagrams for every exercise and scenario. This book certainly makses Caslow's obsolite and threatens the the businesses that have sprang up selling ccie labs. The down side of the book is, this is vol 1 and doesn't have IPX, BGP, IS-IS, IPSec, and Multicast which the author says will be in vol 2. Also the solutions for the labs at the end of the book can be downloaded from a Cisco site. I think this should have been on a CD and included with the book. I can't even find the solutions on Cisco site; it is probably not postered yet. The price is steep, but compared to what is out there, it is worth every penny.
