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Cisco Field Manual: Catalyst Switch Configuration Review by Sean E. Connelly
A good book at showing Cat configs
CiscoPress's "Cisco Field Manual: Catalyst Switch Configuration" by Hucaby and McQuerry is a very strong attempt at documenting the configuration implementations of Cisco switches. Any Cisco Switching book is going to need to make a decision as soon as the first page - and that is how best to document the two separate and totally different versions of Cisco Catalyst operating systems - COS and OS. This book takes a different tact - and one that I think works very well. Instead of splitting up the two OS domains and describing each in their own respective sections - the authors have decided to show how to implement both types of commands at the same time. This little difference is profound in the way it helps demonstrate the use of each command and eliminates redundancy found in other all-in-one switching books.
It is important to note that this is not a Switching-101 book. You definitely need a decent understanding of the various subjects - Spanning-Tree Protocol (STP), Virtual-Trunking Protocol (VTP), etc... The book does a good job at discussing the different implementations of Vlans and Trunking (Chapter 6).
One reassuring item to note is that I did not find any typos in the book. I have used this book while studying for my CCIE R&S lab (I think a lot of CCIE candidates forget that the `S' in R&S stands for Switching). I have also used this book for real-world implantations. I feel the utilitarian value of this book is much higher than Hucaby and McQuerry's similar book on Router configuration.
I give this book 4 pings out of 5:
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