CCNA Security 640-554 Official Cert Guide,

by Keith Barker

Official Cert Guide: CCNA Security 640-554 is a comprehensive book for candidates taking up the Cisco Certified Network Associate Security certification (CCNA). The book covers the entire syllabus for the certification test along with 90-minutes of video training. In addition, the book is accompanied with a study tool, which includes sample questions, pre-assessment tests and realistic exam questions. This book is essential for networking engineers.
About the Authors
Keith Barker started his career working as a network technician for Electronic Data Systems. He has over 25 years of experience working in IT and networking. He has completed his Cisco CCIE certifications in both security and routing, and he is also a Cisco Certified Systems Instructor. He is currently working with Nova Datacom as a trainer and consultant. He has authored several books like CCNA Security 640-554 Official Cert Guide and LiveLessons Bundle, CCNP Security IPS 642-627 Official Cert Guide, and CCNA Security 640-554 Official Cert Guide Premium Edition eBook and Practice Test.
Scott Morris is a consultant contractor at Cisco Systems. He is the owner and Principal architect at Emanon.com, Inc. His areas of expertise are Global Infrastructure (Routing & Switching), Security, Network Analysis, Unified Communications, Wireless, and Multi-Vendor Networking.

Genres: Technology, Technical

680 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2012

Reviews

[Evan Snyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, very well written high level overview of security. This is a very deep topic, but Keith did a great job of providing helpful details without getting lost in the weeds. Although I appreciate this as a well-executed textbook, having a CCNP Route-Switch already made much of the reading repetitive and unenlightening for me, until the VPN piece, which explains the complex and typically brushed over topic of cryptology very well.

For those of you taking the CCNA Security exam, there are a few topics on the exam not covered in enough detail here, so be sure to look at another resource about common security threats, AH/ESP, and transport/tunnel modes. When I took the exam, the only configurations involved CCP. While reviewing the ASDM/command line configurations will probably help you internalize and understand the concepts, you will not (if the test from late 2012 is any indication) have to actually implement them during the test.

[Indranil Mondal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the Official cert guide for CCNA R&S this book also gave me a lot of questions. But it also did give me a good foundation to move forward to the CCNP Books. The Official Cert Guide CCNA book always leaves me with a lot of questions. The ones which are solved in my CCNP studies.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a tech book, it's pretty good. Lots of good info and Keith Barker is one of the better guys to learn from. He is the class with Jeremy Cioara. I definitely feel like I have a better understanding of Cisco's look at security.

[Brian Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written guide with lots of good information and examples.