INTRODUCTION

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.