Is the Promise of the Title Accurate

CCIE Security Exam Certification Guide (CCIE Self-Study), Second Ed.

Reviewer Name: Keith T. Hall, Sr. Member of the Professional Staff

Reviewer Certifications: MBA, BSEE, INFOSEC Professional (NSTISSI 4011 Std), Senior Systems Manager (CNSSI 4012 Std), CCNA, CCDA, CCDP, CCIP, CCSP, IAM, IEM

As the definitive guide for the Cisco CCIE Security Written Exam, I had very high expectations. Ironically, the book was not what I had expected at all. I actually found the the Cisco Security Exam Certification Guide to be useful in two entirely different ways --- if split between Chapters 1 through 7 and Chapter 8 with the accompanying CD-ROM.

Chapters 1 through 7 of the CCIE Security Exam Certification Guide comprise a Cisco security technology overview. I am currently using this part of the book as a reference to help organize thoughts regarding potential customer security solutions. As an advanced reference for various Cisco security topics, it is a helpful summary of numerous Cisco security technologies.

Is the book perfect? Unfortunately, no. Potential readers should know that this part of the book will require another revision and still appears to be a "work-in-progress." However, if the reader can forgive the occasional errors and mistakes, then the majority of the content forms a useful and informative technical reference.

Purely as a technical reference, the first seven chapters provide a nice outline of Cisco's security offerings and are useful to quickly look up potential customer security solutions.

The real value of the product (as far as the CCIE Security Written Exam is concerned) is in the CD-ROM and Chapter 8. Up until the point I loaded the CD-ROM, I wasn't sure if the SRP (or discounted SRP) was worth it, but I definitely changed my mind when I started going through the CD-ROM's practice exam questions. The 737 practice questions are a useful resource for CCIE Security Written Exam preparation. The test engine is based upon the Boson practice exam software and contains a number of challenging review questions. In fact, even though the book is intended to address the CCIE Security Written Exam, Chapter 8 is actually a practice scenario for the CCIE Security Lab Exam.

Another warning:- the practice questions are good, but take the questions as a starting point upon which to perform further research or look up topics for which the reader is unfamiliar. (Of course, a CCIE -candidate should be able to quickly figure out the intent behind the question and not have to rely upon the "book answers" anyway!)

For the serious CCIE Security candidate, the CD-ROM also includes links to additional practice exams offered by Boson (for an additional modest fee, of course!). The CD-ROM also has the entire book softcopy in PDF format.

I would recommend the book as a resource for advanced Cisco administrators and CCIE candidates looking to refresh their knowledge of Cisco security features. Overall, I would rate this book as 3 out of 5 for engineers not already familiar with Cisco security technologies, and 4 out of 5 for highly experienced Cisco engineers.