Get started using Cisco technologies quickly and easily
Here is a fully updated edition of the bestselling introductory guide to Cisco products and technologies. Cisco: A Beginner's Guide, Fourth Edition provides you with a practical hands-on resource for successfully designing and managing a Cisco network. Learn to work with Cisco routers and switches, wireless technologies, and storage tools. You'll also get full details on network security, including firewalls, as well as communications solutions such as VoIP. This is a must-have resource for anyone interested in internetworking and Cisco technologies.
- Work with Cisco's Internet technologies
- Configure Cisco routers and networks
- Understand Cisco internetworking technologies including LAN switches, multilayered switching, and VLANs
- Secure your network using CiscoSecure ACS, Cisco PIX firewall, IOS Firewall, and other methods
- Enable wireless internetworking using the Cisco Aironet and Airespace products
- Deploy VoIP via Cisco Unified Communications
- Implement Cisco storage area network (SAN) and content delivery network (CDN) solutions
- Use both open standard routing protocols (RIP, OSPF, BGP) and Cisco-proprietary protocols (IGRP and EIGRP)
- Design, manage, and troubleshoot a robust Cisco network
You generally can't pick up knowledge of Cisco products casually, the way you can learn about Microsoft Windows, Unix, and other products that are more generally accessible. For this reason,
Cisco: A Beginner's Guide performs a valuable service. It introduces internetworking novices to the language and fact base that underlie routers, switches, network protocols, and the rest of the Internet's infrastructure. True enough, no book can teach you everything you need to know about a subject as complex as internetworking, but this one does a great job of giving you the background you need to perform well in a class or do hands-on experiments intelligently.
The book goes heavy on prose, enabling you to slowly absorb the truth about complex systems as the author lays a foundation of knowledge and then builds upon it. Conceptual diagrams help drive home relationships among network devices, though the blueprints in the center of the book suffer from being split down the middle by the book's binding--foldouts would have been far better. This is a superb book, though, one of the best around on internetworking with Cisco. It would make an excellent first purchase for a future Cisco expert or a fine "fundamentals" reference for more accomplished network engineers. --David Wall
Topics covered: Internetworking from a theoretical standpoint, backed up by information on how Cisco products handle implementation (meaning, in part, that you get information on which Cisco lines and models are good for which jobs). Technically, readers get the goods on Cisco Internetwork Operating System (IOS), routers, switches, routing protocols, and security. There's great information on the pantheon of Cisco certifications too.
