Cisco Routers for IP Networking review

I'm actually quite warming to the 'Black Book' series of reference works from Coriolis. They aren't cheap and they take up a fair whack of bookshelf (this tome weighs in at just under 800 pages), but by sacrificing your money and office space you get a life-saving problem solver.

If you're a network technician whose job involves the day-to-day support of Cisco routers, you'll just love this book, as you will if you're taking a CCIE exam and want to do some extra-curriculum swotting. To be honest, even if you just want to hone your Cisco router knowledge because you're that way inclined, this is the book for you. It's most certainly not aimed at the network beginner, and for that we should be ever grateful because it means precious little space is lost to introductory twaddle that you don't need and certainly don't want to pay for.

This, like all the Black Books, is a hands-on, real-world experience. It covers very complex topics systematically and in depth - there's no surface skimming or concept leaping here. Part of its beauty is that it isn't afraid to cover the kind of mission-critical tasks that others simply don't mention, let alone tackle with this degree of understanding. The chapters are divided into two distinct parts, with a technical overview followed by a set of practical and immediate solutions to the problems highlighted. Complex subjects are broken down into component parts, easily manageable, bursting with diagrams and real-world, lab-tested configurations to make the job happen.

Whatever your programming and administrative challenges, the Black Book will have a readily available solution. If you're in the business of configuring Cisco routers for Internetworking IP-based networks; need to know more about IP routing and bridging using Cisco kit; want to get to grips with data-traffic filtering or EIGRP and OSPF, then you've got it - a how-to reference work that cuts right through the waffle and delivers instantly usable, real-world solutions to your problems.

Author: Davey Winder