CCNP Book recommendations

Spudage

Hello everyone,

It's been a while since I've visited this forum. While I haven't posted here very often, I did follow a lot of the CCNA topics last year when I was studying for my CCNA.

To study my CCNA I purchased the CCNA Certification Guides (Intro and ICND by Wendell Odom) and thought they were excellent. I also did a lot of reading on the web as well to confirm information and see further examples.

I have now decided it's time to get in gear and start CCNP study.

Those of you who have taken one (or more) of the current CCNP exams, what books do you recommend?

The first ones that immediately came to mind is the CCNP Official Exam Certification Library, 5th Edition set. Are these books as good as the ones I used for my CCNA (mentioned above)?

More importantly, are there any horrible oversights or missing pieces of information in these books? If possible, I'd like to buy only one book for each exam and fill in any gaps using information freely available on the web. I don't want to pay for multiple books that are full of redundant information.

The only book I already have which I know will be an excellent resource is Routing TCP/IP Volume 1, 2nd Edition (Doyle/Carroll) which seems to be highly recommended by everyone who has read it.

Thanks for your help and I look forward to becoming active on this forum as my study begins.

networker050184

The CCNP exam cert guides are not as "all encompasing" as the ones for the CCNA exams in my opinion. If you only get one book I'd suggest the study guides. It would be best in my opinion to have both, but the study guides are more indepth and go above and beyond the exam objectives. If you just need a book to polish off your knowlede for the exam then the cert guides would probably be good enough. If you are learning these topics for the first time then it would be best to go through the study guide. So I guess what I'm getting at is that it depends on where your level of knowledge is on the topics of which single book would be best. I would always say use more than one source even though a lot of it would be overlap.

geezer

I too am in the same boat I guess 'spudage' in deciding which books to get so will keep an eye open for any news on this front. Decisions, decisions....

Spudage

networker050184 wrote:

The CCNP exam cert guides are not as "all encompasing" as the ones for the CCNA exams in my opinion. If you only get one book I'd suggest the study guides. It would be best in my opinion to have both, but the study guides are more indepth and go above and beyond the exam objectives. If you just need a book to polish off your knowlede for the exam then the cert guides would probably be good enough. If you are learning these topics for the first time then it would be best to go through the study guide. So I guess what I'm getting at is that it depends on where your level of knowledge is on the topics of which single book would be best. I would always say use more than one source even though a lot of it would be overlap.

Thanks for the input. I'll see if I can find somewhere to check out both the study guides and the certification guides side by side. While some topics I am already quite familiar with, overall I'm guessing most of the material will probably be new to me and the extra detail of the study guides will probably be beneficial.

networker050184

The study guides also have lab scenarios at the end of the chapters. You needc about five or six routers to do the labs, but they are pretty good. You can also check http://www.vlab-training.com/LabScenarios/Scenarios.html for some good links and lab scenarios.

JohnDouglas

Thought I'd quickly hijack this thread.

Was just wondering what the rest of the offerings in the cert library (that's just been released) are like? I know the BSCI book is good (as it was recommended to me in another thread) but are the rest top notch too? Figured it might save me a bit of money getting them all now. Although it won't if Cisco sneakily change the sylabus! Does anyone know if a sylabus change is on the cards?

http://www.ciscopress.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=158720178X

CCNP Official Exam Certification Library, 5th Edition

CCNP BSCI Official Exam Certification Guide, Fourth Edition, helps you evaluate your ability to use advanced IP addressing and routing in implementing scalability for Cisco integrated services routers (ISRs) connected to LANs and WANs. This book covers all the topics on the CCNP BSCI exam 642-901. CCNP BCMSN Official Exam Certification Guide, Fourth Edition, covers all the topics on the CCNP BCMSN exam 642-812 and helps you understand how to implement scalable multilayer switched networks. CCNP ISCW Official Exam Certification Guide covers all the topics on the CCNP ISCW exam 642-825 and tests your ability to secure and expand the reach of an enterprise network to teleworkers and remote sites with a focus on securing remote access and VPN client configuration. CCNP ONT Official Exam Certification Guide covers all the topics on the CCNP ONT exam 642-845 and examines your ability to optimize and apply effective quality of service (QoS) techniques for converged networks.

Ferret999

If you are learning the stuff for the first time I would read the self study guides first. There are only self study guides for BSCI and BCMSN at the moment but they are worth reading through if you have not done the official courses. I doubt Cisco will change the sylabus since they have just changed it and the cert library has just been released.

JohnDouglas

Ferret999 wrote:

If you are learning the stuff for the first time I would read the self study guides first. There are only self study guides for BSCI and BCMSN at the moment but they are worth reading through if you have not done the official courses. I doubt Cisco will change the sylabus since they have just changed it and the cert library has just been released.

thanks. good news that cisco won't be updating anything for a bit.

anyone else tried out the other guides in the library?