From: Richard Wagner (Richard.Wagner@xxxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Tue Feb 29 2000 - 12:30:29 GMT-3
Title: RE: Voice over IP . how much?
Hello All,
I got the book Jason mentioned (Configuring Cisco VoIP, Syngress) and
a book
called "Cisco Packetized Voice & Data Integration" Caputo/McGraw-Hill,
isbn
0-07-134777-1. I've read both and *highly* recommend the Caputo book
over
the Syngress book.
The Caputo book is much much much better for those of us looking to
satisfy
Cisco's voice requirements on the CCIE lab. I make that statement
from
seeing the voice in my last lab attempt. It is written for people
with
strong lan/wan knowledge and weak phone/pbx knowledge. You get
lessons on
how the phone in your house evolved, how it turned digital, and how
the
routers move that digital data. QoS is a big component of VoIP and it
is
covered well. A natural addition to the CCIE lab will be QoS for IP,
especially now that voice is covered.
For us geek CCIE wannabes :), getting hands-on for voice will be
difficult
(just like ATM). I'm confident that being book-smart with this book
(and
the minor experience gained from my lab attempt) will get me through.
Good luck to all!
Richard Wagner
(read on if you want to know about the Syngress book)
OK, since I wasted $40+ on the Syngress book, here comes the flame...
(my
personal negative opinion/review)
The Syngress book, in my opinion, sucks. It's only strong points are
that
it covers H.323 and the "pbx on a net" ideas using Call Manager (the
other
book doesn't touch it). There are many errors, crap is cut/pasted in,
the
tables are missing information, and the tables' data conflicts with
the
paragraphs accompanying them. (example: the paragraph states "Cisco
supports all five types of E&M ports", the adjacent table correctly
states
that type IV is not supported).
It was great to get fuzzy ideas on H.323 and network-PBX... the rest
of the
data has constant flaws and I eventually didn't trust the information
to be
complete or correct. The author doesn't have CCNP, CCDP or CCIE
certifications and it shows... kind of like hiring an MCSE that
doesn't have
experience yet. The "technical editor" CCIE obviously didn't do his
job
well when a non-technical proofreader would easily catch many of the
errors.
The IP addresses don't match up in the labs. The loopbacks on
different
routers are in the same IP subnet while using the loopbacks for
unnumbered
serial interfaces. Why add the unnecessary complexity?
Additionally, over 20% of the book (over 100 pages) is dedicated to
appendices for IPv6. This is a lot of unnecessary padding in a book
called
"CONFIGURING Cisco VoIP" I have yet to see a VoIP command use
anything but
ipv4:, dns:, ras, or loopback: for targets. Without giving an opinion
on
the importance of IPv6, it should be in a book with the word "IPv6" in
the
title. Additional padding comes in ROI studies and future projections
for
the technology. You'd be better off scrounging the 'net and doing
your own
cut/paste study guide.
I'd see this as a great opportunity to make my own book on this
subject, but
Caputo has this one well covered! Give this book to your
semi-technical
manager for a better chance to see VoIP in your real-world future.
Ok, I'm done, I will breathe now :)
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