Just passed ROUTE today, couple of questions on SWITCH prep...!

CiscoCerts

Hey Guys,

Feeling like i'm on cloud 9 after 6 1/2 months of hard study the Route is vanquished!

I've been trying to figure out which book to go with for Switch, i've got both of the old BCMSN books, one from 2004 and one from 2008 both by David Hucaby. There are some terrible reviews of FLG on amazon about FLG being riddled with errors and I've read some posts here about the current OCG not matching up to the Switch test.

Will either (both) of these older BCMSN books suffice? What do you suggest?

NetworkVeteran

Good job searching before diving in. This book doesn't have the flaws of the Cisco Press books--

http://www.amazon.com/Cisco-CCNP-SWITCH-Simplified-ebook/dp/B00528J3P8/

CiscoCerts

FYI I did search and didn't find anything comparing BCMSN with SWITCH... Thanks for the link buddy.

MrBrian

I picked up this book, "Cisco LAN Switching"

Amazon.com: Cisco LAN Switching (CCIE Professional Development series) (9781578700943): Kennedy Clark, Kevin Hamilton: Books

It's a CCIE level switching book from 1999. If you look close there, you can buy it used for $2.44. Don't get me wrong, it's from 1999, and has some old stuff, but it goes into great detail on 802.1D spanning tree, vlans, etherchannel, switching theory, etc. It's pretty big. I'm currently going through selected parts, and loving all the details it gives. I even read about some of the old protocols they had set up for bridging between ethernet and token ring segments. Token ring was different alright, lol.

I have the SWITCH FLG, but it basically goes into no depth. It's funny because the ROUTE FLG was pretty thorough I'd say, but not the case for SWITCH. It just says "this does this and that does that," and moves right along. No wonder the book is so tiny. I generally try to go way overboard with my reading and labbing to ensure that I have the material down pat.

But anyways, click the "look inside" on amazon and you can check out the table of contents to see what you think. For $2 used there's really no reason not to add this to your library imo.

Coolhandluke

First things first , Congrats on the pass!

I passed the SWITCH in December using the current FLG and OCG. There were lots of bad reviews for the OCG at the time and people were complaining about the lack of content when compared to the exam. I actually found the OCG and the FLG to be very good, covered all topics (David Hucaby website covers the missing material which isn't much) and went into enough depth without over complicating things.

Overall I found the exam straight forward with only a few curve balls that I was rusty on.

lordy

Congrats on passing ROUTE, big step!

I am reading the FLG right now and I find it OK. Some things are repetetive instead of in-depth but overall it's good. I have been watching the Bryant Videos did some labbing and am now reading the FLG to check if there are any white spots left. So far, I feel well prepared.

Danielh22185

Congrats on the Route pass!

I too have heard mixed reviews on switch study material. I have heard the majority of the time the FLG guide for Switch is junk. I think I will still get it depending on the price to read and see what I think personally.

Mind me asking what you used for your route studies? (currently what I am working on)

Deathgomper

Congratz! Good luck on your Switch studies.

CiscoCerts

Thanks everyone!

Danielh22185 wrote: »

Congrats on the Route pass!

Mind me asking what you used for your route studies? (currently what I am working on)

For exam prep I used Bryant Advantage CCNP Route book & video series, CBT Nuggets ROUTE, INE ROUTE as well as some light reading in TCP/IP Vol. 1, and of course on the job experience.