Network Administrators Survival Guide
Reviewer Name: John Ainsworth, Network Administrator
Reviewer Certification: CCNP
Network Administrators Survival Guide, by Anand Deveriya is part of a new trend from Cisco Press I have been noting: they are pushing more hands-on usefulness. This book is intended for the person who has to support a network for a living. However, the reader does not need to be a Cisco expert to read this book. In fact, anyone who would be in a position to need its advice would be astute enough to implement it.
Don't expect the author to explain all of the concepts behind every IOS command given. Deveriya is giving you a quick example of what works to get you going. This book is written for people who need to get things done in a hurry and don't have time to get their Ph.D. in a technology before implementing it. That doesn't mean there is no depth behind this writing. The author is a CCIE and the reviewers include William Parkhurst, Ph.D., author of some of the most technical books on Cisco. In fact there must have been a great deal of laborious rewriting to get it so brief.
Deveriya has practical examples of how to set up several different brands of terminal emulation clients on both windows and Linux workstations. The entire book obviously comes from real world experience. The author not only reveals the diverse diagnostic functionality built into the Cisco IOS, he also demonstrates the tools that can be used on Windows and Linux workstations. The author walks the reader through a case study troubleshooting a BGP meltdown problem on a perimeter router by simply using different ping diagnostics along with show processes cpu. "We" were able to determine the cause and enabling ip route cache on the router solved the problem. "Once again super ping saves the day!"