Ccie Professional Development: Cisco Lan Switching

CiscoPress's "Cisco LAN Switching" by Clark and Hamilton is one of the classics of Networking. For years, this book has been considered the "Bible" or the "Source" for LAN switching topologies. Having written that, I feel that LAN Switching had covered a topic to a degree where it wasn't necessary to write another book on the same subject. Most Cisco Networkers live at Layer 3, and moving down to Layer 2 (and, in particular) STP is both a mystery and, perhaps, beneath them (both literally and figuratively - on the OSI stack). For a lot of people, Layer 2 is plug-n-play (dangerous indeed!). As Cisco's main switching workhorses (6500s) increase in functionality - the lines between layer 2 and layer 3 start to get hazy. But fear not - the layers are still distinct! LAN Switching does a superb job at dissecting the vagaries of STP - along with discussing VTP and trunking. For 99% of people requiring LAN skills (both CCIE candidates and networkers), this will be the resource to put on their bookshelf. And "Cisco LAN Switching" by Clark and Hamilton will fill this role nicely for them. I give this book 5 pings out of 5: !!!!!

What this book provides: --- With some hands on experience, this book will make you an expert in Cisco LAN Switching. Every subject related to the design, troubleshooting and maintenance of switched networks is discussed in detail. I especially enjoyed the chapters on STP and Campus Design. If you already own Cisco Catalyst switches or are looking to buy Cisco Catalyst switches, this book is invaluable.What this book does not provide: --- This book is not an introduction to LAN Switching. Many networking terms are not defined in the assumption that the reader has a networking background. If you are looking for an introduction to LAN Switching or networking, you will need to look elsewhere.I also noticed a few errors in the book. Mostly just missing lines from networking diagrams and the text referring to the wrong figure.

I usually hold my praise until I take and pass an exam but I'll make exception for this awesome book. Most CCNP books seem very disjointed and filled with numerous technical and egregious editing errors. Simply put they don't make a lot of sense because they seem like a collection of cut-n-paste from other techinical documents. If you were trying to learn and understand various switching technologies including LANE, STP, VTP, VLAN or etc.... i can truly say that this book is the best. It explains with authority, clearity, and humour. After you read this book, you'll feel like your time reading it was well spent because you will understand reasons and whys. Its just a beautiful book. Thanks to authors.

This book is a must for every network engineer and designer! The content is very detailed and well structured, you may skip chapters and go back and forth if you don't feel that you don't need to read them (not suggested ;). The chapters on STP are probably the best material ever written. It covers the whole lifecycle of a network - from the design to troubleshooting and every part of it is excellent and very well-explained which makes it easy to understand (as long as this could be "easy" ;). Unfortunately the CLSC 1.0 test (from the CCNP track) focuses on a little different aspect than this book, which doesn't make this book less valuable. If you're planning on taking CLSC 2.0 (which is coming live later this year) this book fits so well like the test questions are written by the authors (quite likely ;). In my opinion this book and "Routing TCP/IP" by Jeff Doyle are the best books on networking (and Cisco) ever written.

I had an opportunity to review this book and found its discussions of VLAN's, implementation, design (best practice) and pitfalls, as invaluable knowledge. The additional discussions on ATM and designing switched Network was excellent. This book is logically put together, emphasizes real world, issues , and theory. Best book on switching and application of the technology that I have seen.