Description:
The CCIE All-in-One Study Guide actually would be a fairly decent book were its title not quite so overwhelming in its promises--because, frankly, it's not an all-in-one book. Any book that says it'll steer you through the notoriously tough waters of the CCIE exam, then doesn't provide a lick of information on routing commands, obviously is being a bit hopeful. A more appropriate title might have been "The Absolutely In-Depthest Book on Networking Protocols You Could Ever Want"; not only would that not have fit on the cover, probably, but it really wouldn't have sold, either. What this book is, however, is a step-by-step but fairly intense walk through the minutest portions of networking. Most books will tell you that "Ethernet works by broadcasting frames across a cable---every computer checks the frame to see if it's theirs, and if it is they pick it up"; the CCIE AIO not only goes through the exact byte sequence with which Ethernet broadcasts onto the cable, but it gives flow charts that tell you, in excruciating detail, how it checks the write, how the computer knows when a frame is ended, whether it's theirs, and how it checks to see if it's too small. A wealth of detail will flood you, the reader. Which is a problem with the guide: it strives to be comprehensive, and it is. If you're the sort of person who learns best by thoroughly immersing yourself in the underpinnings of a system, this is your dream--the chapter on TCP/IP architecture in particular is extremely thorough and worthwhile. In terms of actually getting as close to a bit-level understanding of how a computer processes the various protocols and routing commands, this book probably is unparalleled. People have said that the Guide is poorly written--actually, the writing is a strong point, with clear sentences walking you with ease through some fairly niggling topics. What it lacks is organization; even within the chapter, it sometimes leaps spontaneously from topic to topic, requiring a bit of crisscrossing on your part. One wishes for a strictly chronological tour from start to finish on how the computer thinks, but it's not always there. There isn't that much on troubleshooting, either, but the book seems to assume that once you understand how everything works it will follow naturally that you know how it can break down... which is not unreasonable, truthfully. The questions are plentiful--over a thousand of them--but tend to err on the simple side for the CCIE, with an emphasis on definitions, setting parameters, and True/False questions, instead of troubleshooting problems (although they do exist). Unfortunately, the answers section is almost completely useless--if you chose the wrong answer, there is generally not any form of explanation of why something is right. You just get a blunt "B and C are the correct answers," without much else. (To be fair, however, there are some well-explained answers--about one out of every seven or so--but they're the exception, not the norm.) Essentially, this is not so much a total study guide as it is a very detailed look at a topic that CCIE candidates should know inside and out. In that sense, this is an invaluable guide marred by a few technical flaws and some poor organization. More importantly, the title's a bit hyperbolic, which causes some letdown. However, if you understand that this book will get you a long way towards getting the certification without quite being the all-in-one stop it promises, you'll have gotten your money's worth. --William Steinmetz
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