CCNP BSCI Exam Certification Guide (CCNP Self-Study), Second Edition

Rating:
Summary: Erroneous and badly written, not recommended
Review: BSCI 642-801 is a tough exam and the combination of topics makes it tough to remember everything. This newer Clare Gough book is worse, please do not buy it, get a copy of the CD from someone and practise the questions from the CD.

Clare Gough does not cover NAT or IPV6, and the written text is very dry, and riddled with errors.

I would read Paquet and Teare book on BSCN,(...)Then for IPV6 I would use the web. Finally use the Gough CD to practise questions.
For NAT my recommendation is: Jeff Doyle routing Volume 2, though you do not need to read the whole long winded chapter for the 642-801 requirement.
Final suggestion is make your last minutes notes while reading from all these sources as having all the material in one place for the final study helps.

Rating:
Summary: They should have paid more attention to detail
Review: This book is another example of a Cisco Press book that was written in a hurry by a group of people that did not communicate nor did they carefully review their material for errors. Some of the router configuration examples are clearly wrong. The attached CD at times does not reflect the written mateial and asks questions that are not covered in the book! As of May 1, 2003, Cisco has announced that the BSCI 640-901 test (This Book!) is being replaced by a new test - BSCI 642-901. Hopefully the author(s) will correct all of their errors in the next edition for the new test. Good luck on you CCNP/DP Certification

Rating:
Summary: Best Book for the 640-901 Exam
Review: This was a very good book in general. There were some typos. I originally had the Todd Lammle BSCI book but found it did not map to the test objectives very well. My associate had the book and after reviewing it I bought a copy. I used this book, the Cisco BSCN Supplement for IS-IS, Todd Lammle's RouterSim and few resources from the Cisco website to study for the exam. I passed the exam and feel the book sufficiently covered the material on the exam. The 640-901 exam is being replaced by the 642-801 exam. The new exams look like they are focused more on actual configuration and applying concepts rather than the concepts themselves. Good luck in your certification endeavors!