Why is CCNA and Beyond different?
With CCNA and Beyond you follow the CCNA syllabus, but instead of jumping from topic to topic, you actually build a network from the ground up.Where other training guides teach you a topic using individual labs, this book teaches a more holistic approach. This is a great way to learn networking, not just for a certification, but to also overcome the gap between training and gain the real-life skills you will need.
We build a complete network, the Local Area Network (LAN), the Wide Area Network (WAN), and then we build on these foundations, and improve it and secure it.
There is a complete troubleshooting lab, which we need to fix and solve, in order to get from point-A to point-B, eliminating all the issues along the way.
More crucially, CCNA and Beyond teaches you the little tricks and techniques that network engineers use, and the things that trip them up.
This isn't just to teach you what you need to know for the exams, it's to teach you what it is to be a network engineer.
Why should I buy a book you have written?
Good question, and definitely one you should ask.I have been in IT for fourteen years (as of 2016), and focused on networking for over half of that. I started writing as I studied for my CCIE, first publishing a book on BGP, then on MPLS and then on VPNs and NAT. The first book was a shot in the dark, I had no idea how it would be received, but it did pretty well, so I wrote the second and third books. Even with the competition of the big publications, they do well, the reviews are good, and they are in the networking books best-sellers list on Amazon:
My books are inexpensive (when compared to other publications) so are suited to most budgets, and are read all over the world. The bonus with my books is that readers can contact me, on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and by Email. I do my best to help out where I can, and I believe that this improves the value. Many people have asked when the next book in the CCIE series (Multicast and QoS) is going to be released, so I must be doing something that works!
Hopefully you will find this out for yourself!
