Cisco: A Beginners Guide

I passed the CCNA today, partially due to this book (although the test study guides were more useful for that purpose). I'm new to IT, coming from a completely unrelated field. This book isn't the best introduction to networking and Cisco I found (I'd recommend Myhre's CCNA Certification book for that), but I know this will be my most useful reference book as I begin my IT career. It's full of information and laid out in an accessible format. I was truly a beginner when I picked up this book, and when I finished it I had a good grasp of routers, switches, IOS, and the OSI model. I'm sure this is a great book to get if you're familiar with networking but new to Cisco. If you're really green (as I was) and in pursuit of your CCNA, you'd do well to try Myhre's book first.

This book is incredible. It explains everything you need to learn as a beginner in the internetworking arena. I used Lammle's CCNA book (very good) and the Cisco CCNA Training kit, along with other material to learn Cisco and Internetworking for the CCNA Test. I could have save a lot of money if I had adquired this one first. My favorite is this book, and along with any free cramsession study guide from the net & the Sybex e-trainer simulator, Routersim, or a router, should be more than enough to pass the CCNA and get you started in the internetworking arena.

With the exception of the excellent Windows NT Server 4.0 book by Mark Minasi, this is the most excellent IT text I have read to date. As a networking newcomer with average reading skill, I was impressed by the knowledge I had gained after only a single pass. In my opinion, after reading this book you will be prepared to determine your Cisco specialty. You will have a solid foundation in networking theory and hardware. Chapter 3 will prepare you for the certification route as comprehensively as Cisco. We invest a lot of money in out IT libraries. This book will be among your most valuable additions.

For the beginner this book fills in all the holes left out by the many different study guides and training materials available for the CCNA exam. Terms and definitions are very abundant and are located right along side of the terminology being discussed. Tom Shaughnessy assumes that the reader knows nothing about Cisco products and takes you from A - Z on routers, switches, hubs, and much more. After reading this book the study book I used was more of a review guide. Also a great book for review of networking essentials. For the professional this is a great book to have in your reference library. This book is not a study guide. It contains no practice exams, questions or exercises. When it's time to get back to the basics, this is the book to have!

I've read a pile of Cisco-specific and general networking books. I even consider myself beyond "beginner" books. But a friend told me great things about this one...so I got it...read through it and have to say that is one of the best written guides to Cisco networking that I have ever seen - really !