CCNP BCMSN Official Exam Certification Guide [With CDROM]

This is an excellent material for those who want to get Cisco CCNP certification. Also contain a very useful and update topics of networking.

I studied using this book for only 3 months and I scored 825 on the exam. Great book if you already know a bit about WLANS. The wireless section doesn't give enough details about the Cisco's Unified Wireless Network and the practice questions are not a challenge.

I used this book as my only study tool to prepare for the updated BCMSN exam. This was also my first book from the Exam Certification Guide series. I found it to be very pleasant to read. It gets straight to the point, and does a very good job in preparing you for the exam. The only draw back are the practice questions on the CD. They are way too easy, and might only give you a false sense of security. But I think this is true for all the practice exams that come with Cisco Press books.

CCNP BCMSN Exam Certification Guide is a comprehensive reference for preparing for CCNP recertification. It provides the theory behind Layer 2/3 Switching topics as well as numerous questions/answers within each chapter. The book also includes many exhibits and tables to complement the text. Each chapter ends with a summary of the key topics presented for quick reference. The book also includes a CD that provides practice exams. This book has been a tremendous help as I prepare for my CCNP re-certification.

The complete title "CCNP BCMSN: Exam Certification Guide" (ISBN: 1-58720-077-5, David Hucaby, Cisco Press) by itself does not convey very much. However, by examining the exam topics (from www.cisco.com) for the "Building Cisco Multilayer Switched" exam (BCMSN 642-811), the reader will be able to see that the subtitle, along with the content of David Hacaby's book are very much connected.Nothing more than a CCNA level of knowledge is required to digest the concepts and subjects covered in this book. Certainly, those persons who will find the book most useful will be those who are preparing for the "BCMSN 642-811" exam. However, anyone seeking to strengthen their knowledge of switching concepts will definitely benefit from reading this book.The "CCNP BCMSN: Exam Certification Guide" text is comprised of 21 chapters, with the majority of the chapters focusing on topics that relate to building a campus network - switch configuration, VLANS, Trunks, Spanning Tree Protocol, etc. Four of the book's 21 chapters pertain to the Spanning Tree Protocol, which is a good indication of the importance of this protocol in the overall performance of switched networks. Each chapter begins with a set of multiple-choice questions. Each chapter also concludes with a set of questions, but not in a multiple-choice format. Instead, most of the questions at each chapter's end require the user to provide an elaborative response -- compelling the reader to apply a little more recall to what was (hopefully) learned in the chapter. So, by concluding the chapter with questions in this format, the reader is challenged to acquire a deeper understanding of the chapter's content.The book does not contain a surplus of examples but, those that do exist, provide more than adequate coverage for the topic previously discussed. The examples are easy to follow, and really serve to reinforce the concept that prefaced the example.The illustrations and diagrams that appear in the book lend an immense amount of support to each chapter's contents by providing a visual aid that really connects to the particular concept being presented. The great majority of the diagrams relate to the position of switches in a network design, which most readers should find very supportive in understanding the campus network design.Included with "CCNP BCMSN:Exam Certification Guide" is a companion CD. Although the CD contains the same questions from the chapters in the book, it does also contain an entirely different set of questions; some of these questions requiring (and allowing) for the configuration of a router and/or switch. To accomplish the router/switch configurations, the companion CD contains software that makes it possible to simulate the configurations for the particular question. Not only does the router/switch simulation software develop some comfort in configuring a router or switch in a switched network but, the questions themselves do a great job in simulating a live exam - gettin