Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Networking Primer
Review: "Cisco: A Beginner's Guide" is an excellent primer for anyone interested in a career in computer networking. And since Cisco basically owns the market for networking equipment, this book will become a valuable part of any professional networker's technical library.
Rating:
Summary: The first 40 pages in 768 pages.
Review: An awful lot of computer books seem to leave out the first forty pages that should give you an introduction of just what it is that we are trying to do with this piece of hardware or software. This whole book, all 768 pages of it can be considered the first forty pages of any Cisco or Networking book that you might otherwise want to read.
This book talks about the internet, not about how to surf to a web page, but about the underlying structure - the backbone, the protocols, the way a message gets from here to there and back. The orientation is, as you might guess from the title, towards Cisco equipment. But I doubt that there are very many ISPs that don't have at least one Cisco box.
The book covers the Cisco philosophy on routers, switches, quality of service, security, wireless, content delivery, protocols, network management, network design, and finally even how to troubleshoot Cisco networks.
This is not a manual or certification cram guide for say the Cisco 12000 series router. This is the first forty pages of the manual on those products. And after reading the first forty pages, you might know if you need a Series 12000, or a Series 800. You'll at least be able to understand the manuals on these pieces of equipment.
Excellent book. I'd like to see the same thing on PC's, mainframes, clustering, and on and on.
Rating:
Summary: A Must read, must keep !
Review: Excellent book for the Network professional, whether using Cisco equipment or not. Provides a great foundation for networking plus nitty-gritty Cisco networking fundamentals and recommended standards. Even includes basic network design blueprints !
Rating:
Summary: Excellent in all respects
Review: Excellent coverage and well-written guide to Cisco routers and other topics. The book fills in a lot of the gaps left by the certification books, so it makes a good companion to them. This book and Toby and Anthony Velte's Beginning Cisco guide are two of the best MIS books I've seen, especially for readability, as the Cisco-written certification books, although they have the best coverage of the topics needed for certification, still, I have to admit are pretty dull. As one person said, they all sound like they were written by the same person--such as Joe Friday from Dragnet. Shaughnessy and the Velte's should have been subcontracted to edit them or rewrite them--they could have livened things up quite a bit. In fact, the writing is about as lively as Cisco's stock has been lately. Anyway, this and Velte's book are very worthwhile adding to your library. These will be books you actually read instead of them just sitting on the shelf looking impressive.
Rating:
Summary: Get up to speed quickly
Review: Excellent overview of the Cisco technology, with excellent in depth subject matter. You can skip some of the material and not be lost in the later chapters.I believe the writing style was engaging, easy to read and follow. This is rarely the case with tech books, in my opinion. I will be watching these authors for other books about subjects I need to know. This also exposed the technology without getting into page-wasting history lessons. Rarely do I care how this technology developed, if I needed that, I would get a college textbook which helps the professors fill their knowledge voids with useless information. Finally, if you know nothing about Cisco equipment, get this book first.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for Cisco newbies
Review: Finally . . . a book that speaks to mere mortals. Well written with good explanations. The authors provide a good balance of technical information while presenting the information in a real-world context. A FANTASTIC place to begin understanding the Cisco line and routing in general.
Rating:
Summary: ***SIX*** Stars!
Review: Finally . . . a book that speaks to mere mortals. Well written with good explanations. The authors provide a good balance of technical information while presenting the information in a real-world context. A FANTASTIC place to begin understanding the Cisco line and routing in general.
Rating:
Summary: A "Must Have" book for both the beginner and professional.
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent overview of not just Cisco, but also networking
Review: I am a senior engineer for network security operations. I am not a Cisco guru but I am fairly well versed in LAN technologies and protocols. I read "Cisco: A Beginner's Guide, 2nd Edition" (CABG:2E) to learn about the products and services offered by the world's networking leader. I hoped to recommend CABG:2E to my junior network security analysts. Unfortunately, the book's error count makes it too confusing for networking novices. Those who are experienced enough to recognize the book's problems probably don't need to read it.
Reading a technical book is an issue of trust. I can tolerate a few errors. Several errors make me uneasy. Multiple errors make me question the entire work; the authors have lost my trust. I didn't lose complete faith in CABG:2E, but I was uneasy. For example, p. 74 says TCP sequence numbers count packets; they actually count bytes of data. On p. 75, the authors imply that SYN and FIN are the only TCP "code bits," omitting URG, PSH, RST, and ACK. On p. 71, SMTP is listed as a UDP protocol while SNMP is associated with TCP; they should be swapped. P. 75 oddly states "the TCP connection process is often referred to as the 'three-way handshake' because the second step involves sending the receiving station two TCP segments at once." How about SYN - SYN/ACK - ACK as three packets, hence a three-way handshake? The authors have a lot of trouble understanding denial of service attacks as well. On p. 280 they equate DoS to sending "infinite emails" (?) and on p. 289 they invent the term "FINflood" to explain why Cisco CBAC tracks TCP finwait-time. (No such "FINflood" attack exists.) P. 553 mentions "FINwait" as another (nonexistent) DoS method. Finally, I'll pin one early error on an editor or spell checker; p. 38's mention of "du jour" standards should say "de jure." I wouldn't be so concerned with these errors in a book for advanced users, since I imagine experienced readers would notice and discount them. I can't expect "beginners" (the target audience) to recognize these mistakes.
Overlooking the book's problems, CABG:2E includes a lot of very useful information. I enjoyed learning about EtherChannel, VLANs, H.323, SIP, SANs, and RMON. NAT, NAPT/PAT, routing protocols, QoS, and designing networks are all well covered. The authors consistently define new terms as soon as they appear, and the definitions are uniformly clear. The network blueprints in the book's center are enlightening, and the many excellent diagrams, figures, and tables greatly add to the reader's learning experience.
Despite this book's drawbacks, I'm keeping it on my recommended reading list. When I find a book that offers a better introduction to Cisco, I'll remove CABG:2E. If you choose to read the book, and you're a beginner, be sure to ask a guru if you feel you've found a mistake. Otherwise, wait to read a corrected third edition. (Disclaimer: I received a free review copy from the publisher.)
Rating: 
Summary: Wait for 3rd edition; 2nd ed's errors outweigh strengths
Review: I am a senior engineer for network security operations. I am not a Cisco guru but I am fairly well versed in LAN technologies and protocols. I read "Cisco: A Beginner's Guide, 2nd Edition" (CABG:2E) to learn about the products and services offered by the world's networking leader. I hoped to recommend CABG:2E to my junior network security analysts. Unfortunately, the book's error count makes it too confusing for networking novices. Those who are experienced enough to recognize the book's problems probably don't need to read it.
Reading a technical book is an issue of trust. I can tolerate a few errors. Several errors make me uneasy. Multiple errors make me question the entire work; the authors have lost my trust. I didn't lose complete faith in CABG:2E, but I was uneasy. For example, p. 74 says TCP sequence numbers count packets; they actually count bytes of data. On p. 75, the authors imply that SYN and FIN are the only TCP "code bits," omitting URG, PSH, RST, and ACK. On p. 71, SMTP is listed as a UDP protocol while SNMP is associated with TCP; they should be swapped. P. 75 oddly states "the TCP connection process is often referred to as the 'three-way handshake' because the second step involves sending the receiving station two TCP segments at once." How about SYN - SYN/ACK - ACK as three packets, hence a three-way handshake? The authors have a lot of trouble understanding denial of service attacks as well. On p. 280 they equate DoS to sending "infinite emails" (?) and on p. 289 they invent the term "FINflood" to explain why Cisco CBAC tracks TCP finwait-time. (No such "FINflood" attack exists.) P. 553 mentions "FINwait" as another (nonexistent) DoS method. Finally, I'll pin one early error on an editor or spell checker; p. 38's mention of "du jour" standards should say "de jure." I wouldn't be so concerned with these errors in a book for advanced users, since I imagine experienced readers would notice and discount them. I can't expect "beginners" (the target audience) to recognize these mistakes.
Overlooking the book's problems, CABG:2E includes a lot of very useful information. I enjoyed learning about EtherChannel, VLANs, H.323, SIP, SANs, and RMON. NAT, NAPT/PAT, routing protocols, QoS, and designing networks are all well covered. The authors consistently define new terms as soon as they appear, and the definitions are uniformly clear. The network blueprints in the book's center are enlightening, and the many excellent diagrams, figures, and tables greatly add to the reader's learning experience.
Despite this book's drawbacks, I'm keeping it on my recommended reading list. When I find a book that offers a better introduction to Cisco, I'll remove CABG:2E. If you choose to read the book, and you're a beginner, be sure to ask a guru if you feel you've found a mistake. Otherwise, wait to read a corrected third edition. (Disclaimer: I received a free review copy from the publisher.)
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