reviews/cisco_routers_for_the_desperate.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<page title="Cisco Routers for the Desperate" keywords="">
<item>
<p>Author: Michael Lucas</p>
<p>ISBN: 1593270496</p>
<p>Publisher: No Starch Press</p>
<p>Reviewed by: <a href="http://www.unixdaemon.net">Dean Wilson</a></p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
There is a special place on my shelves for slender books that are
focused on a single topic, offer practical advice, are pragmatic in
their coverage and engagingly written. "Cisco Routers for the Desperate"
(CRftD) meets all four criteria.
</p>
<p>
Most sysadmins inherit a couple of Cisco routers and treat them as (forest
green) black boxes. We don't need to touch them very often and when we do
the lack of familiarity makes the experience one of dread. CRftD is a very
practical guide to the basic tasks you'll occasionally have to do. It
explains how to connect to a Cisco router, how to nose around, set up
local and WAN interfaces, upgrade and backup your IOS install and
introduces a surprising number of advanced topics (BGP, HSRP, enabling
syslog, SSH and SNMP services) in just under 120 pages.
</p>
<p>
As you can guess by the range of topics and the page count the coverage
isn't very deep and doesn't cover all the edge cases, but in this book
that's both deliberate and part of its charm. The topics it does cover are
those that 95% of the readers will need, and they're explained well enough,
and in so few pages, that it'll actually get read. Which is a rare thing
these days.
</p>
<p>
So what's bad about it? The authors personality can be seen in a number of
the chapters. If you like his style and sense of humour these little
snippets help lighten the tone and break the book up, if you don't then
you'll sigh half-a-dozen times while reading it. It also lacks coverage of
access control lists. I know these are a major topic in themselves but a
dozen page introduction (with examples such as limiting the SNMP access to
a monitoring machine) would have rounded the book out perfectly and covered
the only thing most admins will need to do that isn't in the book.
</p>
<p>
Summary: If you've tech savvy but Cisco challenged then this books for you.
It's not a one stop shop but it covers almost everything you need to get
started. We've just bought an office copy so I can have mine back. 8/10
</p>
</item>
</page>
reviews/cisco_routers_for_the_desperate.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<page title="Cisco Routers for the Desperate" keywords="">
<item>
<p>Author: Michael Lucas</p>
<p>ISBN: 1593270496</p>
<p>Publisher: No Starch Press</p>
<p>Reviewed by: <a href="http://www.unixdaemon.net">Dean Wilson</a></p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
There is a special place on my shelves for slender books that are
focused on a single topic, offer practical advice, are pragmatic in
their coverage and engagingly written. "Cisco Routers for the Desperate"
(CRftD) meets all four criteria.
</p>
<p>
Most sysadmins inherit a couple of Cisco routers and treat them as (forest
green) black boxes. We don't need to touch them very often and when we do
the lack of familiarity makes the experience one of dread. CRftD is a very
practical guide to the basic tasks you'll occasionally have to do. It
explains how to connect to a Cisco router, how to nose around, set up
local and WAN interfaces, upgrade and backup your IOS install and
introduces a surprising number of advanced topics (BGP, HSRP, enabling
syslog, SSH and SNMP services) in just under 120 pages.
</p>
<p>
As you can guess by the range of topics and the page count the coverage
isn't very deep and doesn't cover all the edge cases, but in this book
that's both deliberate and part of its charm. The topics it does cover are
those that 95% of the readers will need, and they're explained well enough,
and in so few pages, that it'll actually get read. Which is a rare thing
these days.
</p>
<p>
So what's bad about it? The authors personality can be seen in a number of
the chapters. If you like his style and sense of humour these little
snippets help lighten the tone and break the book up, if you don't then
you'll sigh half-a-dozen times while reading it. It also lacks coverage of
access control lists. I know these are a major topic in themselves but a
dozen page introduction (with examples such as limiting the SNMP access to
a monitoring machine) would have rounded the book out perfectly and covered
the only thing most admins will need to do that isn't in the book.
</p>
<p>
Summary: If you've tech savvy but Cisco challenged then this books for you.
It's not a one stop shop but it covers almost everything you need to get
started. We've just bought an office copy so I can have mine back. 8/10
</p>
</item>
</page>