Description
This book is designed to fill a gap that has existed for some time in technical books and instructional materials covering networking in general and Cisco technology in particular. As a trainer, I have struggled to find materials that strike a middle ground between basic networking texts and books that jump immediately into certification-level topics that many readers and students are not prepared to digest.
There will always be a market for books designed to present and review certification-level topics to those who are already familiar with the knowledge required to understand those topics. In today’s economic times, however, there is a whole new breed of students who are either taking classes or operating in a self-study capacity but do not have this prerequisite knowledge and may not even realize this as they attempt to tackle certification-level classes and books.
I have seen these students in my classes over the years. They are no less intelligent or motivated than the students who have more background and experience. But at the pace at which these books and classes must move to cover all the material, they soon find themselves struggling. Some even give up entirely.
This book covers all of the basic knowledge required for you to really understand routing and switching. It provides the required amount of time for you to digest the fundamentals before moving on to actually setting up and configuring the routers and switches and seeing them operate. It does not attempt to cover every bell and whistle that these devices offer, nor does it cover every topic that is on a Cisco CCENT exam. What it does do is provide all of the basic network knowledge from a Cisco perspective.
The student who reads this book and works through these exercises or the student who takes a class using this book as its text will come away ready in every way to tackle books and classes targeted for exam prep for the CCNA. That is the goal of this book and was our guiding principle throughout its creation.
Who Should Read This Book
This book is designed for anyone wishing to gain a basic understanding of how networks operate and how Cisco devices in particular fulfill their roles in the process. This includes the following:
- Those who have been away from the IT industry for some time and are reentering the field
- Career changers with no previous experience
- Students who have struggled with certification-level prep materials
- Students who have had success with certification-level prep materials but came away from the experience with a shallow understanding of the core foundational knowledge