CCIE Practical Studies, Vol. 2 (CCIE Self-Study)

By Karl Solie and Leah Lynch

Book Overview

Includes practical lab scenarios for experience for Cisco certification exams. These practical guides show networking students how to apply the theoretical knowledge for both exam preparation and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1587050722
• ISBN13: 9781587050725
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Cisco Press
• Length: 1032 Pages
• Weight: 4.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.6" x 8.2" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Valuable resource for the CCIE R & S lab

CiscoPress's "CCIE Practical Studies - Volume II" by Solie and Lynch does a good job at preparing CCIE Routing & Switching candidates for the CCIE Lab. While this book picks up where Volume 1 left off, this volume does a much better job at both documenting and displaying some of the more advanced requirements of the lab. It is also important to note that this book should not be used to first introduce yourself to a topic. The book requires you to be familiar with the topics discussed. The first chapter is a much needed resource on the 3550 Catalyst switch. Part 2 covers route-maps and policy-based routing. I felt the multicast section was weak but felt it was made up for in the section covering QoS. The last part is on BGP and an excellent companion to Doyle's coverage in his 2nd TCP/IP book. I would not recommend the labs at the back of the book - they are error prone. I did find some typos or editorial errors in the book (but not nearly as many as in the first volume): Page 389 - in the first sentence - the bandwidth should be 772 kbps - not 772 bps. There are actually multiple errors over the next few pages. Page 566 - the last line of the first paragraph - "... then the ORIGIN value is type 3, Incomplete." The origin code is type 2 for incomplete. Page 737 - the aggregate-address should have included the `as-set' command. Weighing in at 1,000 pages, it will take time to properly digest this book. I'm really at a loss as to whether this is a 4 or 5 star book. But considering the depth and breadth of coverage, it is nonetheless a book that must be read before the CCIE R & S lab. Overall, I expect to find this book on many a CCIE's bookshelf. I give this book 5 pings out of 5: !!!!!

An Excellent Follow-up to Vol. I and Great Study Guide!

A CCIE candidate has to be very careful about the books he/she may select as a study guide. Most often, the two biggest problems about a CCIE study guide is either the material is extremely dated or the book itself is riddled with errors and is elementary on the topic it professes to educate the reader about. Thankfully, Karl Solie's CCIE Practical Studies Vol. II is neither of these.I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of Solie's first CCIE Practical Studies. I was disappointed in other CCIE study guides, notably the earlier Hutnik/Saterlee "CCIE Lab Practice Kit". Practical Studies Vol. I, while having some dated material such as coverage of the Cat5xxx Series, provides an excellent treatment and foundation for Layer 2 protocols and IGPs. The labs at the end of the book were also of excellent quality.I picked up CCIE Practical Studies in late December as a last minute addition to my CCIE prep library. I was scheduled to take the lab in February, and I anxiously awaited arrival. Needless to say, I was not disappointed! CCIE Practical Studies Vol. II coverage begins where Vol. I left off. The topics of focus include the Cat3550s, route-maps, multicast, and BGP. I found the chapters on BGP especially helpful. Upon completion of these chapters and labs, I had a much better grasp on BGP and the protocol's bells, whistles, and knobs. The appendix includes a great piece on prefix lists, an absolute must for any CCIE candidate. Finally, the labs at the end of the book were terrific, on par to many of the various "boot camp labs" available for purchase.If I must provide one negative, it is that the author was inconsistent on providing IOS requirements needed to complete the labs. Sometimes Solie was kind enough to let me know I needed 12.2(T) or 12.3, and other times it was overlooked. As a result, during one lab, I needed to upgrade my IOS code and swap a router in the middle of my practice. A pain but, certainly not the end of the world.As for my lab, I passed on February 26, 2004, CCIE #12932. I firmly believe that I would not have passed if not for Solie's wonderful treatment of BGP in CCIE Practical Studies Vol. II!

Great material for advanced networks or CCIE

Whether you're chasing the improbable CCIE certification or building an advanced network, "CCIE Self Study: CCIE Practical Studies, Volume II" by Karl Solie and Leah Lynch, ISBN 1587050722 is a guide to several key topics along the way. More than just a CCIE study guide, this book balances test preparation and real world skills in an informative but easy-to-read book. Without a word of review from the first volume, the first chapter hits the street and it doesn't look back. In addition, detailed practice labs are interspersed with the subject material so the reader can "make permanent" the skills being covered.Book Sections:Advanced Switching, focusing on the Catalyst 3550Route maps, Policy-based routingMulticast RoutingPerformance ManagementQuality of ServiceBGP Theory and PracticeSeveral of the chapters covered those elusive details that are never covered well enough in the documentation. The chapter on route maps and policy routing exposes the true flow of match statements and deny clauses, while the QoS chapter covers just the right amount to help the reader simulate live traffic through an RSVP-enabled network. The BGP chapters (350 pages!) cover peer establishment troubleshooting (oh so important for the CCIE exam!) and the finer points of developing a large-scale network (not just the options, but the deciding factors and the ramifications thereof). Carefully separated into theory, practice, and advanced topics, the authors lead the reader steadily through design, implementation, and tuning topics. The CCIE exam requires the candidate to able to conquer all of these issues in rapid fashion, and the BGP chapters cover the relevant details with a solid structure and a clear vision.After the topics are covered, the authors include five strong practice labs to challenge the candidate's study and knowledge. If the BGP chapters weren't worth the price tag themselves, these five labs add even more value for those pursuing the CCIE certification. Like the individual topic labs, these full "test" labs are written in a manner that can be adapted to a minimalist's home lab or a full complement of routers as outlined in the prestaging sections.My first time through the book (with the practice labs postponed until later) took only two nights, and left me re-energized in my studies. Without tying up the reader with review of topics from Volume I or material found in other common titles, the authors get very deep on topics without making assumptions of the little things. No book (or editor?) is perfect, but the authors found a strong team of reviewers to give it their best shot. There's a minimum of errors and typos throughout the book, above the average for the twenty books I've read in the past six months.If you're pursuing the CCIE leather jacket or fortifying your production network, this book is a welcome addition to your library. My only hope is that MPLS doesn't end up on the Routing & Switching exam (or the authors cover that topi

Great Addition to CCIE Library

I would highly recommend "CCIE Self Study: CCIE Practical Studies Volume II" by Karl Solie and Leah Lynch, ISBN 1587050722, to anyone who is preparing for their CCIE certification. After enjoying the first volume in this series, I was excited to see the release of the second volume. I found that as is the case in most Cisco Press books, the authors did a great job presenting the information in an easy to follow format and provided plenty of valuable examples and configurations. One thing that was great to see is that the book reflects the updated CCIE lab format (2-day to 1-day) and equipment specifications (mainly the addition of the 3550 switch). I would have to conclude that one of the main things that set this book apart from others is the practice labs that are found through out the book. The labs do a great job of driving home the concepts that are introduced. Keep in mind that most of the labs do require some pretty expensive equipment in order to perform the labs. Book DetailsThe book is broken up into six main areas: Ethernet Switching - This section covers the basic concepts of Ethernet switching such as Vlans, VTP, Spanning Tree and Ether channel. In addition to the basic concepts, a large amount of the section is dedicated to the setup and configuration of the new 3550 Catalyst switch.Controlling Network Propagation and Network Access - This section covers creating and implementing Route Maps and Policy-Based Routing. There are four practice labs in the section and I found them very useful.Multicast Routing - Just as the name implies, this section deals with the basics of Multicast such as IP addressing and Multicast Routing Protocols. PIM is covered in good detail along with Joining and troubleshooting.Performance Management and Quality of Service - Performance management deals with switching modes and compression schemes. I would have liked to have seen some additional information regarding ways to increase performance but overall I was impressed with the detail of the information that is included. I specifically like the section that deals with determining the performance of the router. It introduces the reader to the show and debug commands that are the most useful in determining the performance of the device. The QOS section covers a wide variety of methods to control traffic. Knowing a great deal on the theory of QOS but lacking in the area of seeing the actual results of implementing QOS, I really enjoyed working through the two labs that are available.BGP Theory and Configuration - With out a doubt the largest section of the book. Everything is covered from the basics to path attributes to reflectors and confederations. The advanced BGP section deals with filtering routes and creating routing policies by using path attributes. If you really want to learn BGP, the BGP sections are definitely for you.CCIE Preparation Labs - This section contains five CCIE preparation labs that force you to apply everything tha

A nice compliment for CCIE studies

I recently read the book titled "CCIE Self-Study: CCIE Practical Studies Volume II" by Karl Solie and Leah Lynch. ISBN: 1587050722. The book has quite a bit of information in it. I have read quite a few books from the Cisco Press CCIE library and must say that this title is a good compliment to the collection.I like how the information is presented in this title. The authors have done a good job organizing the information. The format really helps to grasp the concepts and most importantly the implementation of certain features. The figures and illustrations in this title are exceptional. Especially in the chapters regarding Quality of Service. The diagrams help out a lot with conceptualizing the logic applied to some of the many queuing strategies. There are some diagrams pertaining to certain queuing strategies that I have not seen on other books, which help me to better understand the queuing mechanism a lot better.This book is best suited for Small business and Enterprise professionals seeking to gain a solid understanding of particular networking features in Cisco equipment. Some Service Provider professional might find the BGP chapter to be very useful. I would recommend this book to those individuals or study groups that are starting out on their quest to obtain the CCIE certification and are in need of re-enforcing solid networking practices.There are a few chapters that I found particularly helpful. The first chapter that covers the Catalyst 3550 gives some really good insight into the capabilities of this widely deployed switch. Anyone that has a wide deployment of Catalyst 3550's would find this chapter useful in unlocking the switches potential. Some other really good chapters are the three chapters that cover Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). The BGP chapters make up about 30% of the book and the authors have done an excellent job at communicating several of the many challenges when working with BGP. BGP is so well documented in this book that it make a great reference on the topic.The book comes with a CD that contains some practice labs and configurations that would be helpful to know when studying for the CCIE Routing and Switching Lab. Most of the practice labs require several lab devices in order to replicate the environment in an actual lab. The labs have a good variety of technology challenges. Probably not the same caliber as the real CCIE lab, but good practice none-the-less. The CD also contains software that can be used for terminal emulation services. The software looks really nice. I believe most of the packages can send a break to the terminal, which is very useful when attempting to get to the ROMMON prompt for tasks such as password recovery.Overall this book is a nice compliment to the many resources required when studying for the CCIE exam.