CCDA Official Exam Certification Guide

Third Edition

• Master all 640-863 exam topics with the official study guide

• Assess your knowledge with chapter-opening quizzes

• Review key concepts with foundation summaries

• Practice with hundreds of exam questions on the CD-ROM

Anthony Bruno, CCIE® No. 2738

Steve Jordan, CCIE No. 11293

CCDA Official Exam Certification Guide, Third Edition, is a best-of-breed Cisco® exam study guide that focuses specifically on the topics for the DESGN exam. Senior networking consultants Anthony Bruno and Steve Jordan expertly cover the latest exam content, helping you identify areas of weakness and improve your knowledge of Cisco network design. Material is presented in a concise manner, focusing on increasing your understanding and retention of exam topics.

CCDA Official Exam Certification Guide presents you with an organized test preparation routine through the use of proven series elements and techniques. “Do I Know This Already?” quizzes open each chapter and allow you to decide how much time you need to spend on each section. Exam topic lists and concise Foundation Summary information make referencing easy and give you a quick refresher whenever you need it. Challenging chapter-ending review questions help you assess your knowledge and reinforce key concepts.

The companion CD-ROM contains a powerful testing engine that allows you to focus on individual topic areas or take complete, timed exams. The assessment engine also tracks your performance and provides feedback on a topic-by-topic basis, presenting question-by-question remediation to the text.

Well regarded for its level of detail, assessment features, and challenging review questions and exercises, this book helps you master the concepts and techniques that will enable you to succeed on the exam the first time.

CCDA Official Exam Certification Guide, Third Edition, is part of a recommended learning path from Cisco that includes simulation and hands-on training from authorized Cisco Learning Partners and self-study products from Cisco Press. To find out more about instructor-led training, e-learning, and hands-on instruction offered by authorized Cisco Learning Partners worldwide, please visit www.cisco.com/go/authorizedtraining.

A. Anthony Bruno, CCIE® No. 2738, is a senior principal consultant with British Telecom with more than 17 years experience in the internetworking field. He has consulted for many enterprise and service-provider customers in the design, implementation, and optimization of large-scale data and IP telephony networks.

Steve Jordan, CCIE No. 11293, is a senior consultant with British Telecom with more than 11 years of experience in internetworking. He has extensive experience with large-scale data-center environments and has designed and implemented various network solutions in the manufacturing, telecommunication, and transportation industries.

This official study guide helps you master all the topics on the DESGN exam, including

• Network design methodology

• Network structure models

• Enterprise LAN design

• Wireless LAN design

• Enterprise edge module design

• WAN design

• IPv4 and IPv6

• Routing protocol selection

• RIP, EIGRP, OSPF, and IS-IS

• BGP, route manipulation, and IP multicast

• Security management, technologies, and design

• Voice architectures and IP telephony design

• Network management protocols

Companion CD-ROM

The CD-ROM contains an electronic copy of the book and more than 200 practice questions for the DESGN exam, all available in study mode, test mode, and flash card format.

This volume is part of the Exam Certification Guide Series from Cisco Press®. Books in this series provide officially developed exam preparation materials that offer assessment, review, and practice to help Cisco Career Certification candidates identify weaknesses, concentrate their study efforts, and enhance their confidence as exam day nears.

Category: Cisco Press—Cisco Certification

Covers: CCDA® DESGN exam 640-863

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 9 Ratings

Knew the book cold, failed the exam - 2008-04-30
Reviewer Rating:
I used this as my primary resource to prepare me for the CCDA exam. I went through this book probably 5 times over, knew answers to all the questions. I would say I could recall 90-95% of the information in this book fairly easily. I will also say that I've passed the CCNA, BCMSN, and ONT exams all on my first try before attempting this exam. I scored a 707 out of a 825 on the CCDA. I know I missed a few quesitons related to material from this book (2 directly related to calculating # of voice calls on a given amount of BW, codec, use of cRTP or not, L2 header. Figure how to calculate this before taking this exam, although note, this book doesn't actually show you how to do that, only gives you a table. That's not enough when the exam throws in L2 headers for instance), but I also know I missed many more for material that was not covered. I've since quickly browsed over the DESGN book from Diane Teare and looked through forums and it's becoming clear that this is the better book to study. The DESGN book does not come with the CD exam questions, and again there is material in this exam guide that was on the exam so it is helpful, just don't make it your primary source. The DESGN book appears to be a better primary source of studying.

So, with all that said, I'd recommend buying both and spending more time with the DESGN book, especially in the beginning. The exam guide is far more brief in their explanations and does not go into the detail you need to correctly understand and answer some of the questions on the exam. As the one reviewer said, Cisco wants you to fail. Wording is very tricky and you need to know the slightest of differences in answers to pass this exam. The DESGN book will give more of that detail you need.

Lastly, the CD in the exam guide book is very helpful but it does as others mentioned have errors. If you know the material though, you'll realize the errors are pretty obvious and although aggravating should not effect your learning. Also know that the CD questions are easy compared to the exam questions. You may want to also look for test exams out there as another final prep tool.

I don't know when I'll take this exam again. Hopefully within a few months. Whenever I do (and hopefully I'll pass next time), I'll update further and add a review on the DESGN book.

This certification is not my idea of design. - 2009-01-13
Reviewer Rating:
If I didn't have the CCNA I wouldn't have clue about design after using this book. It's more a philosophy of design, in particular Cisco's philosophy. I am not going to waste $250 to take the certification because all it would be is a piece of paper. So I don't know if the book will help you pass the test. If you want to know if this will help you pass the test read other reviews.

Good Foundation - 2009-04-19
Reviewer Rating:
This book does a good job of providing the baseline information required for the CCDA exam. There is a lot of excellent information and reference in this book that can be used in everyday work with network design and pre-sales activity.
While I found this book to be very helpful in preparing for the CCDA exam do not use this book as your only material in preparation for the exam.

Building on The Basics - 2009-02-09
Reviewer Rating:
CCDA Official Exam Certification Guide (Exam 640-863) (3rd Edition) This book is excellent, whether you are trying to simply get up to speed on best practices for network design, or working towards the CCDA certificate. It starts with the basics, and builds step by step from there.

If you want to fast-track, you can by-pass sections by taking the pre-test for each chapter. Or, do what I did, and use the entire book as a detailed review to keep current on best approaches and methodology for network design, as well as the certification exam preparation. Since it takes a back to the basics approach, you can't really go wrong either way.

In a world of boring technical material, this is still a readable and digestible work.

CCDA book - 2009-01-12
Reviewer Rating:
The book has a great deal of information necessary to prepare for the test. Great reading material.

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