Subnetting and the Todd Lammle book (CCNA Sybex) vs. Odom

drew2000

All,
I've been studying two separate texts (Lammle, Sybex, 2005) and (Odom, Cisco Press, 2007).

Odom seems to go into much deeper details with subnetting than Lammle (maybe he just gives so many different methods it confuses me). However Lammle speaks to me and seems to be using the same methods I learned for my MCSE.

Can anyone tell me if Lammle's coverage of subnetting is sufficient for CCNA/CCENT?

Odom's explanation confuses me to the point that I would rather drop it and stick to Lammle, but I am fearful that Lammle's explanations won't be deep enough.

I know I need to know:
-CIDR Notation
-How many subnets and hosts a mask gives
-How to find the network number based on an IP and subnet mask
-How to find the broadcast address
-How to find the valid host range
-IP Subnet Zero

Any thoughts? :

Andrew

dynamik

Haven't used Lammle, but I don't care for all of Odom's little tricks. It's easy enough if you just understand the math; I don't see any need for magic numbers and things like that.

I like Chris' instruction: www.thebryantadvantage.com

Also check out www.subnettingquestions.com and www.learntosubnet.com

drew2000

Thanks Dynamik,
I got a ~900 on the 70-291 Microsoft Exam, so I know I am capable of re-learning all of this stuff. Something about the way that Odom explains it just seems so foggy to me. Then again, Lammle seems a little light in the subnetting department (but maybe it's enough!).

Andrew

shednik

Just keep practicing until you can answer it all in your head...I recommend that for the exam to save time. It really helped me when I took my NA exams.

mikej412

drew2000 wrote:

Can anyone tell me if Lammle's coverage of subnetting is sufficient for CCNA/CCENT?

Wendell teaches you more than you need to know for the CCNA, and Todd's Sybex book teaches you how to subnet -- so that's a yes.

mamono

mikej412 wrote:

Wendell teaches you more than you need to know for the CCNA, and Todd's Sybex book teaches you how to subnet -- so that's a yes.

It you can answer questions from http://www.subnettingquestions.com in your head quickly, you can move on from that subject. Odom has always been known to go into more detail than you need to know. Todd's books usually hint at more information, but doesn't go much further than what you do need to know.

mikej412 wrote:

Mike's happy that he can use the holiday icons!!!

mattrgee

Todds book is by far the best for explaining subnetting.

JohnDouglas

just use that subnetting questions site posted earlier. do that for a couple of afternoons till it's second nature.

VantageUK

Another thumbs up for the Lammle book here

As mentioned, subnettingquestions.com site is a good one too. Every now and then I'll have five minutes on that site; helps to keep it solid in my brain while I'm concentrating on other chapters.

Cheers

Charlie.

dwtherock

Saw the words subnetting and had to post what I learned from here. Chris Bryant is great and so is his training material. Once yet get past the basic math go here.

MODERATED

Anyone know why the words spot and blog are XXXX out :

In my opinion, no one knows how to make this easier.

I tried the interesting octet.....can't do that in the exam room.

I tried turning all host bits to one and adding place values in each octet.....thats good too.

However, doing the powers of 2 to the next jump in octet /17 is 7 away from 24 = 128 subnets 254 hosts, is sooooo much faster.

Hope this helps as I am sure all the ideas are. You just have to find the time friendly and uncluttered approach.

Odom = Overkill on any topic. Read the Cisco press for the basic foundation, use Sybex and Bryant or anyone else for the tweaking.

Practice Practice Practice Practice Practice

JohnDouglas

dwtherock wrote:

Saw the words subnetting and had to post what I learned from here. Chris Bryant is great and so is his training material. Once yet get past the basic math go here.

http://subnettingmadeeasy.xxxx xxxx xxxxx.com/

why do people put all the xxxx in?

drew2000

Thanks for all of the great replies. I think I'll hit subnettingquestions.com and try to find my weak areas. I really appreciate all of the opinions!

Also, I took a look at Subnetting Made Easy, I like the fact that they said "Now it's time to go and pick up those books again and go straight to the practice questions, completely by-passing any of their techniques."

I do like Lammle's techniques, and I'll read up on this blog more.

Andrew

mikej412

dwtherock wrote:

Anyone know why the words spot and blog are XXXX out :

I think it's because they are popular for hosting **** sites (and warez, and copyright violations) since they don't respond to complaints and remove the offending content in any type of timely manner. Then we get spammed by 1 post wonders who host their **** sites there and want to share.

And for the non-**** sites created there, we seem to get a bunch of flyby self-promotion spam.

Other popular blog sites aren't **** friendly and don't seem to attract users who like to spam.

Kaminsky

dynamik wrote:

It's easy enough if you just understand the math; I don't see any need for magic numbers and things like that.

+1

There are no short cuts to learning subnetting... sooner or later, you have to learn the math by sitting down with a pencil and paper and writing it out, 1 and 0 at a time. When you finally give in to doing this, you then start to picture it in your head and eventually you wonder what all the fuss was about. Subnetting is easy once it clicks. The only quick way to make it click is to do the binary math.

It also forms a huge part of the exam labs and those for higher certs. Really, 256- , what class of IP and don't forget how many bytes your subnet is.

JavonR

I second doing it the "Math Way"... to me it just seems much more logical, and gives you a better understand of how it all works

dwtherock

Thank you MikeJ412. I don't think anyone should **** or promote it. You actually steal from yourself. Esp if an interview question comes up and you are like uh uh.

I hope the site I referenced wasn't bad. I didn't qualify the site or spend time on it other than getting what I need from it.

I agree to learn from all methods, do the math and fundamentals first, but once you are there, learn the speed version for exams. In life I highly doubt I will have an hour and a half to come up with a subnetting scheme to address a business process/goal. I might get more time.

drew2000

Just an update guys. After hitting Lammle's book again I am really rolling now. I have been practicing on subnettingquestions.com and IP Subnet Practice (http://faculty.valleycollege.net/rpowell/jscript/subnet2.htm) and I am able to do most of them in my head pretty quickly now.

It's amazing how it all comes back to you.

Do these web sites represent the style of exam questions pretty well? In other words, would CISCO ask a question like:

What is the network number for IP XX with mask XX?

On the MS exams where I had to subnet, it was more like a big network diagram and you had to choose the right subnet for the mission.

Later!

Andrew

dynamik

From what I remember from my CCENT, the subnetting was just a part of the question. Once you did the subnetting, you had to perform some other task or use it to answer something else.

DW: Like Mike said, all bl0gspot URLs get filtered. If you think the site is legit, it probably is. You can use something like tinyurl.com to redirect if you have problems like that in the future.

joey74055

Don't know if anyone has posted this or not but this is to Cisco's subnetting game out on their learning website. Its a pretty cool way to learn.

https://tools.cisco.com/ILSG/egame/jsp/FileLoader?doc=SubnetGame.html&client=CiscoLearningNetwork&userName=(none)

joey74055

Sorry, its out under the Cisco Learning Network. Go to the Cisco Learning Network home page, then click on the link IP Networking (CCENT) link on the left hand side of the page, scroll down to the area that reads "Subnetting Made Easy?". This will get you into the game.

mikej412

dwtherock wrote:

I hope the site I referenced wasn't bad.

The last "CCIE Site" from there that just spammed us was just a copy & paste job from CCIE Vendor sites and blogs -- but didn't bother to mention their source. The copyright violations were bad enough, but the **** links made it hard to take seriously.

Not sure where that subnetting content came from, but the links in that blog to a **** site and **** site make it a site we wouldn't want to direct traffic to.