Core Books That Will Get You The CCNP

So you’ve decided: the CCNP it is. Congratulations! That’s a positive first step down this very rewarding, albeit challenging, path.

For those of us not familiar with the Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) certification you can look it up here on the Cisco website. Take note that there is a prerequisite one has to successfully complete before you can attempt the CCNP – the CCNA, which examines apprentice or foundation level knowledge on internetworking technologies.

Keep in mind that there are many other fine, well-written books out there that convey CCNP-level knowledge but these are the ones I used to study for my CCNP and, in my humble opinion, take the cake.

So here we go:

1. Routing TCP/IP Vol. 1 2nd Edition by Jeff Doyle
An absolute must-have for any serious networking professional. The TCP/IP stack is explained in great, practical detail. This book covers mainly Interior Gateway Protocols (IGPs) like RIP, IGRP, EIGRP, and OSPF. It’s very well written and the content is presented in a manner that’s intuitive and generally easy to understand. Note that this book is not a certification guide; it's a reference book. It details material in much greater depth than does the study guide. To pass the Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI) or Composite exam you need to peruse through volumes 1 and 2 of this title.

2. Routing TCP/IP Vol. 2 by Jeff Doyle
Another must-have. Get familiar with the nitty-gritty of Exterior Gateway Protocols, Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4). A range of other topics are covered as well, for instance multicasting, Network Address Translation (NAT), IPv6. This book is chock-full of theory and configuration information on TCP/IP internetworking. By the time you've read through and followed through the case studies four, five times you will have more than journeyman-level knowledge expertise on internetworking. An update of this title is (long) overdue - so we're crossing our fingers hoping for a new edition soon.

3. LAN Switching by Kennedy Clark
The authority on all things "switching" (layer 2 and 3). The subtleties in such topic areas as VLANs, Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), bridging, LAN segmentation and many more are covered in a complete and concise fashion. The Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks (BCMSN) exam is based on this content, so you will want to gain mastery of the material presented. This title too is in dire need of an update, especially since CatOS is in its sunset years (topic of a later posting). That notwithstanding, the content is still applicable to a great extent and you are MUCH better off with it than not.

4. CCNP Official Exam Certification Library (5th Edition) by Brent Stewart, Dave Huucaby, Brian Morgan, Neil Lovering, Amir Ranjbar
Buying the certification library saves quite some change as opposed to buying individually (economies of scale). Get four books for a steal, almost. You will probably notice that most of the content in these books is in summary form, hence the reference books. The study guides typically address all the specific milestones highlighted in the list of objectives for the exam. So before taking the exam ensure that you’ve canvassed the books multiple times.

5. QOS Exam Certification Guide by Wendell Odom
A nice-to-have, excellent complement to the study guide, specifically targeting the Optimizing Converged Cisco Networks (ONT) exam. Some of the relevant topics covered include traffic shaping and policing, classification and marking, AutoQOS, modular QoS command-line interface (MQC). Understanding QoS is paramount if you intend to spend time in the networking field and particularly if you go for the CCIE or CCDE.

The good news is all these books can be had for a fraction of the MSRP ("sticker price") from Amazon.com.

In what order should I read the books?
Well, it really depends on your mode of study. I would typically make a first pass through the study guide to be able to get the scope of the material I will need to cover, then use the reference books to “fill in the blanks”. Whichever method works for you, as long as the route you adopt will allow you to synthesize and retain the content you have studied.

You may realize that by the time you've gone through all this material for the CCNP you'll be probably 80% ready to tackle the CCIE Routing and Switching written exam.

So go for it!