All-In-One Cisco CCIE Lab Study Guide

The best way to learn about internetworking is to build a system of linked networks, play with it until it breaks, build another in a different way, and repeat the process indefinitely. Only by seeing how real machines communicate across real wires can you expect to become prepared for real-life network operations (in which you attempt to do the same thing, but without the "until it breaks" part). All-In-One CCIE Lab Study Guide takes you through the experimentation process, helping you develop a sizable body of knowledge about Internet protocols and the equipment that implements them. In 86 laboratory exercises, all well-designed and thoroughly debugged, authors Stephen Hutnick and Michael Satterlee reveal the intricacies of protocols, routing, bridging, and more, as implemented on Cisco Systems gear.

The exercises read like something out of a high school physics textbook, with equipment lists and specific setup instructions to follow (this is a good thing). Lists of configuration files (which also appear on the companion CD-ROM), highlight and comment on lines that are key to whatever concept the lab is meant to highlight. Then you learn how to test the configurations and what responses to expect from your experimental setup. It's a fascinating approach that's perfect if you have the equipment (sometimes considerable) needed to duplicate the configurations. It's only slightly less great if you have to read along without doing all the experiments. --David Wall

Topics covered: The subjects needed to pass the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) laboratory exam (the implementation of various networking protocols on Cisco products). Covered protocols include ISDN, frame relay, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), Appletalk, IPX, and the TCP/IP suite. Detailed coverage of routing protocols (including OSPF, IGRP, EIGRP, and BGP) makes this book stand out.