Leaves a bit to be desired

This is one of three routing intro books in the Cisco Press line. It appears to be positioned at the very entry level, ostensibly because of its inclusion of a chapter explaining routing with a post office metaphor, and a chapter on decimal and binary numbers.

Although the book is well organized, and covers the major routing protocols, it is surprising that, as an entry level book, there is no review of networking equipment, let alone an explanation of what a router is and how it functions. Many other basic routing concepts such as default routing and redistribution are not covered, but they may simple be beyond the scope of the book.

However, explanations of various topics included in the book leave a bit to be desired. For example, the chapter on EIGRP mentions early on that EIGRP can support discontiguous networks. An example is provided with no immediate explanation. The student would be unable to apply the knowledge to a different scenario. Later in the chapter, route summarization is explained. It is the way route summarization is configured that makes discontiguous networks possible, but that fact is not mentioned. Since the two sections are never tied together, the student will end up having to refer to a different routing primer in order to develop an understanding of the topic.

Other Reviews

• Leaves a bit to be desired
• Routing First-Step may be Second-Step
• More than expected.
• Start with a Horse carried letter, get to the Internet