A great BGP book, but not the first book for the CCIE

I have always felt that I am part of the small minority that just does not see the beauty of this book if studying for the CCIE. I have, for years, read other's comments on the how Halabi's "Internet Routing Arch" is a `must have', yet I still have not found a similar reason why. While I do feel that the book does (probably) the best job at explaining BGP and how to implement BGP in a Cisco-centric world, I have not discovered the value for the CCIE. I would much rather spend my time with CiscoPress's "Routing TCP/IP" Volume 2, by Jeff Doyle and Jennifer DeHaven Carroll than this book.

One item of concern, there is a noticable amount of trivial errors in this book that can lead to disaster if implemented incorrectly. For example:

Page 106 - "...any traffic that has an origin OR destination that does not belong to the local AS." This clearly should be an AND, not OR.

Page 315 - "You can also specify a PREFIX list..." - I believe this should be a filter list, not a prefix list.

And then there are places where the book is too opinionated - for example - page 206 "Many operators choose to filter dynamically learned defaults to avoid situations in which traffic ends up where it is not supposed to be." I do not feel this is true, and can think of multiple times when not filtering the advertised default route may just end up being the worst option. In fact, I do not feel either configuration is the right configuration to admit or condone, as the wrong configuration can have disastrous effects.

I still have to give this book 4 stars - simply because of it's utilitarian value and overwhelming sense of loyalty given to this book by others. But I don't reach for this book too often.

I give this book 4 pings out of 5:
!!!.!

Other Reviews

• the bgp 'bible', even for non believers :-)
• A must read on BGP
• Internet Routing Architectures Book
• Classic BGP and Internet Architecture
• A great BGP book, but not the first book for the CCIE