In the IT world, and especially in security, certifications are often one of the best ways to demonstrate proficiency in your field. The Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert certification is one of the premier certifications from Cisco with less than 3% of Cisco-certified professionals obtaining it. The CCIE Security certification is an excellent means of proving knowledge in IP networking security.
Practice, Practice, Practice!
I have not attained any of the Cisco certfications, but I have friends who have. In the world of certifications there are some which are barely worth the paper they are printed on and can be gotten by anyone with a spare weekend to cram for the test. Cisco exams are often much, much harder than that. Passing a Cisco exam isn't quite that easy. In fact, from what I am told Cisco exams are one of the few certifications that are virtually impossible to pass without significant hands-on experience. While you will probably do better if you have actual real-world experience professionally as well, a book like this one with practice scenarios and labs will help you study for the certification exam.This Book
Not being a Cisco expert myself I can't speak much on the technical accuracy of the book. There are some reports out there of mistakes in some of the labs, however CCIE classes and boot camps can cost thousands of dollars and many CCIE workbooks and preparation programs cost well into the hundreds of dollars. For the $50 price of this book I think a few mistakes can be tolerated. In the end, even if there may be a few mistakes, there are seven practice lab scenarios to help you learn and practice configuration and troubleshooting of solutions. The accompanying CDROM contains the solutions to the lab exercises including the configurations and the output of the SHOW commands. In my experience it is possible that a few mistakes here and there may actually make the experience of using a book like this even better. The process of troubleshooting to determine what the mistakes are generally serves to strengthen the information and cement it in your mind.
