Certification Books

I bought this book as the only study guide for the networking essentials exam. I had no previous experience with networking and i am only 13! I scored an 800 the first time i took the test with only this book. If a 13 year-old can do it, you can too =)

This book has great generic questions and great explanations. The test covers WANs and Protocols and troubleshooting and network emplimentations. This book explained the meaning behind many of the questions. However none of the questions in the book were on the exam. The psychology behind the questions was covered. This book is for test review you will need others. I know networking, but I passed the test because of this book!

I've read the reviews on this book and understand why the MCSE certification ranks are filled with many idiots. There is no way you can rate this book lower than 4 stars and be credible. I searched for and previewed all available books and found this one to be the only one to provide a truly "cliff note" style. It includes just enough info to substitute for a text, yet you can easily skip right to a complete summary. Yes it does have an error on one question but, it's so obvious that it does not overshadow the rest of the benefits. Anyway, it is a plus that it does not have many practice questions! You should be taking those online at CheckPoint MCSE anyway!

I bought this book as the only study guide for the networking essentials exam. I had no previous experience with networking and i am only 13! I scored an 800 the first time i took the test with only this book. If a 13 year-old can do it, you can too =)

Read this the last few days before my Net Essentials exam and scored a 933. Breezed the test. It is an excellent last minute read to prepare for the exam. So much so, I am buying the series for each exam I take. The whole series rocks...

Written for someone who has not had much experience with computers. What you really need to be getting though is 2000 since this has expired.

Althoungh the exam has already retired, I can still imply that this was the book I use to pass the Exam. The companion study guide I use is the Exam Cram red book. However these books only allow you to pass the exam, not to really make you expose to the NT workstaion.

I did not just get the book (isbn 0764506129) but the Training Kit (isbn 0764506188) which packs with an Audio CD and a Scenario Book. The Audio CD hard to listen to, but the Scenario Book was properly the key for me to become a MCP.

The training insitute I went to gave me an NT4 Admin book from Wave Technologies (isbn188486215 or isbn1884486568) which had material that I find which was too hard to swallow, which led to my search for other 70-073 exams books.

I've read three out of six (For Dummies series) and passed first try everytime. This was my third. I feel the book was accurate pertaining to the subjects covered on the exam and owe my generously high score to it. There are some obvious mistakes, but not critical ones. As far as the CD is concerned, I use it to check to see if my bald spot on my head has increased, because of the hole in the middle of the CD, I can't see my bald spot so I must say the CD has been very helpful.

For the pass decade, IDG's Dummies Book had always make learning computers an ease, as for the second edition of MCSE: NT Workststion 4 for Dummies, it makes the certification much less stressful.

The book is organised in paragraphs that does not make you feel reluctant to read, the book also provides other relevant infomation that may apply in the real MCSE world, but not escessive that may bore you out.

I have experience that, some of the information and short test maybe misleading or confusing, that is why I reccomend to have a second book by a different author to assist my knowledge.

The Exam Cram: NT Workststion 4 is the other book I used. It's chapter seperations in this book are much simalar to the Dummies. But don't count on just the Exam Cram, it is not Microsoft Approved.

One last note would be that some of the explaination in Dummies uses terms from The X Files, Star Trek,etc. It is okay if you are into these sort of things, but if not, you can get confuse with the material and the humour. This is the only reason that I gave a four stars rating instade of five.

Used with past Transcender questions, it's a bomber. Excellent revision tool. Not entirely error free but a very useful tool in preparing for my exams which I passed with flying grades! Easy reading though I was confused in a couple of places. Note that NT hardware (hard drive) requirements will vary from 110MB - 120MB depending on installation mode. Pick an answer within that range. I particularly found the Exam Prep tips very useful. For example the book helps you to identify wrong answers heads on, and advises not to get bogged down with scenario questions and leave them for last. Elementary you say, but it's often difficult to remember that in testing situations. I definitely will use other MCSE Dummy books in addition to others in completing my exams.

I just took and passed my A+ exam. This book was really helpful, the questions and anwers were just like the exam. I am very happy with my score and will keep going on other certifications

another attempt to sell junk to customers wishing to become A+ certified PERHAPS AMAZON SHOULD EXAMINE THESE BOOKS BEFORE THEY ADVERTIZE THEM??????????

I have read this through twice and it is best for background info, but it is not focused enough to use for A+ studying. Get transcenders.

This book is a great tool for preparing for the exam. Be sure to use it in conjunction with your core learning tools. There are a few errors in this book, but I have not seen an examination preparation series that have no errors.

Only use this book to find out areas you may need to refresh on. This is not meant as a instructional book.

Wanted to give you guys a heads up on this book. Although it is a fantastic book to test your knowledge of the subject matter in the core exams, there was only one question from this book in the exam itself. Note also that the exam has been changed since the publishing of this book it is now only a 30 question exam with a 30 min time limit. If you are intending on taking the exam within the year you should definitely purchase the larger version or the adaptive version of this book it will help you much more. A note about the exam: STUDY I found it a lot harder then what I was lead to believe.

Just passed the 310-200 exam which covers SPARC, x64, and x86 based systems.
This book's coverage of the SPARC content is in depth, on the other hand the x64 and x86 coverage little more that footnotes.

Two thumbs up SPARC content, two thumbs down on x64 & x86 content.

I read this book cover-to-cover. It was so poorly done. It's almost like the author has no understanding of the SCSA exam at all. I took both SCSA exams and neither one had any questions that were related in this book. If you want to pass the exams, I highly recommend that you not read this book! Poor, poor, very poor.

Am new to Unix/Linux and desperately needed skills to do my job. So I bought this book with the intention of getting the certification.
For somebody that is new to Solaris (or Unix), this is a great. It's fairly step by step (compared to an O'Reilly book I have that is strictly a reference guide), so makes it fairly easy to pick up Solaris. Even after finishing the cert, I am using this book heavily.
Is really good on SMF, which is a plus as I have seen another hefty Solaris 10 book that does not even make a mention of.
My one complaint on this book is that it's not a complete certification guide. In one exam, I got asked 3 questions on snoop that weren't covered in the exam (hint read the snoop man pages). If the exam was straight out of the book (note Sun endorse it), I would have got through each exam first time, but took two attempts on each. My advice is that if you are going to use this book to pass the exams, make sure you know the material really well or be an experienced sysadmin (Sun recommend atleast one years experience). There will be questions that aren't covered by the book. I have to take a star off for that.
This book has taught me lots and got me up to speed really quickly, just wish this guy would write one for the networking exam as well.

If you already pretty much know what you're doing, this is a good reference for preparing for the test. But you have to be able to overlook the issues like typos and wrong entries.

I bought this book, not for the certification per se, but because I needed something that would help me get through some of the pieces of Solaris 10 that I needed help with.

This book does a great job, and really explains what I need to know to function as a system administrator. In fact, in my office most will pick up the book from my desk and search through it because they know that if the answer is in there it'll be easy to pick up and grasp quickly.

Kudos to Bill Calkins -- keep up the good work.

I have personally taught over 20 CCIE's with this book at the IT Mentor CCIE Boot Camp. I think that this is one of the best books on the market for your CCIE studies.

The book is filled with easy to read, useful information. The labs provide very good practice for the CCIE lab exam. If you can master these labs, you have a 90% chance of passing the CCIE lab on the first try.

I found this book extremely useful and relevant for my lab preparation and continue to use it as a reference book for the various technologies. Specific chapters that standout and that I found particularly useful include: ATM; IS-IS; Protocol Redistribution and NAT; Multicast; Bridging and DLSW+ and BGP - the BGP chapter was excellent and extremely helpful! I also read the other reviews and would like to add that yes, unfortunately, there are errors/typos (...) Overall, I highly recommend this book for anyone studying for the CCIE Written Exam or the Lab! Great work and thank you very much, Rob and Kevin.

If you think you must have this book to pass the ccie written.
Then buy a used book. They are available for $18.
Buy instead Jeff Doyles books,Cisco Lan Switching- Clarke & Hamilton, a Bruce Caslow book.

-a twice re-certified CCIE-

This book rates up there with the best. It covers all the topics for CCIE preparation. All routing protocols found in the CCIE lab are covered, including an excellent reference for BGP. LAN switching as related to the 3550 switches is covered. Includes study material regarding the topics covered in the latest requirements for CCIE on the Cisco.com website. I use this book also as a reference for daily work activities as needed.

CCIE: Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert Study Guide, Second Edition is a really good CCIE prep guide.

But don't rely on it alone. you really need to study from multiple sources if you want to pass the CCIE.

I love these online books. They're cheaper then my bookstore books. Came in time for class.

I purchased this book after failing the ICND when I studied with the Sybex CCNA guide. I highly recommend the Sybex book if you are a networking newcomer. It explains everything in easier terms and does a great job of prepping for the INTRO. I would follow up Sybex with this study guide. After hitting the highlights of this book and using the priorities it sets I passed the ICND.

Also, I wouldn't study ISDN as heavily. I wasn't asked a single ISDN question on either ICND exam. I might have been lucky or Cisco is phasing ISDN out of the exam because it is going out of date.

Overall, this is a good way to pass the ICND.

IT IS THE GOODEST BUY I DID FOR MY PROFESSION. IT'S HELPING ME TO STUDY FOR THE CCNA CERTIFICATION EXAM

I think the author did a good job of explaining the topics at the basic level, and he gave just enough information to make a successful CCNA. I liked how he goes over how Cisco devices do different things. If you want to get CCNA, this book is probably the best. I looked at a number of books and frankly the ones that give you a summary do not do justice to candidate, the material, and they are not even good for just passing the exam. You need to understand this stuff and the author does a good job. He highlighed the important sections of the show commands and configurations and he explained them in the following text. Something that you can not find on the Cisco documents ( as much as I like the way they documented everything. )

Wendell Odom did a fantastic job explaining the various aspects of Cisco networking. The book was easy to read and he produced some very creative ideas to clarify some of the tougher material. This book is an excellent source on OSPF, especially the commands. When I took the CCNA exam, I was shocked at how inline the material was compared to the actual exam. The test questions in the book are an excellent source to judge your understanding of the material; however, the exam questions you receive on test day will be much more difficult. If you are able to fully understand what was discussed in the book, you will have no trouble passing the exam. Therefore, I strongly believe that this book provides more than enough information to pass the exam.

I ordered these 4 books because i was going for my CCNP, however after a little while (during a 2 month period) CCNP got upgraded to a newer version, still not to be disappointed i read both sets of CCNP, old one and the new one. Took the 4 new exams, passed them all, extremely happy with the results! In my opinion old CCNP books are valuable and a lot of help because the CIT and BCRAN books/exams are not in the new CCNP course and also some things of old BCMSN (like SPAN) just got removed and it's a shame really.. What happens if an employer asks you about SPAN and you know nothing about it because the new BCMSN course does not cover it? Uh oh.. That's right! Better be prepared.

It was one of the best self-study books and of course, from an online service that is best in service and delivery.

Once you have achieved the CCNA certification, your natural path points toward the Cisco Certified Network Professional certification. This title from Cisco Press is a set consisting of one book for each of the four exams specific to the CCNP certification. This set includes the following books:

--CCNP BSCI Exam Certification Guide, Third Edition, by Claire Gough
--CCNP BCMSN Exam Certification Guide, by David Hucaby
--CCNP BCRAN Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, by Brian Morgan and Craig Dennis
--CCNP CIT Exam Certification Guide, Second Edition, by Amir S. Ranjbar

This set, covering diverse topics in significant detail, is an excellent CCNP preparation tool. The material in the books focuses on Cisco's published objectives for the CCNP exams, and covers them well. The longest and most unique book in this collection is the volume on routing (BSCI). It's structured to cover the objectives for the 642-801 exam using several tools common to all the books in the set-namely detailed but highly readable text, graphical, tabular, and router configuration examples, Q&A and "Do I Know This Already?" quizzes, and the bundled CDROM. The graphics are first-rate and illustrate key concepts clearly.

What sets the BSCI book apart from the others in the set, and other Cisco Press books I've read, is the series of lab exercises at the end of each chapter. The BSCI labs provide comprehensive scenarios that take in all the concepts taught in each chapter, in step-by-step form. Answers are provided following each example so that you can check your work. This book is particularly well-suited to self-study. This level of detail and the inclusion of labs is key, since in my opinion, the CCNP routing exam (642-801) is the most difficult one in all of Cisco's Professional-level certifications. It's appropriate that the routing book, at 950 pages, contains about a third of the pages of the entire set!

The labs in the routing book cover concepts that Cisco hits hard on the exam questions and simulations, including OSPF, BGP and IS-IS. You'll need a fair amount of Cisco equipment to do the lab work, but it's obtainable on-line and is worth the investment if you want to do well on the exams and really understand the topics. For a book of this size, the routing text is remarkably consistent and error-free. Although I found a few minor errors here and there, the book is well-suited to self-study-in part because it is so accurate. The overall structure and content of this book make it the strongest learning tool I've seen for the BSCI exam.

Although the other three books in the set don't include this comprehensive level of configuration exercises, they do provide some scenario-based material to reinforce concepts.

All the texts are good for instructor-led training, or as a text for web-based training. Although the other three books are all significantly shorter than the routing text, they share many of the excellent traits that makes this set such a strong preparation tool for the CCNP certification exams. I tried to use Exam Cram 2 texts in addition to this Cisco Press set while preparing for the BSCI and BCMSN exams, and quickly found that the Cisco Press set offers by far the clearest, most easily digested, error-free and relevant information.

Each book in this set comes with a CD that contains a high-quality practice exam engine (sourced by Boson), as well as the PDF text of the book and some sample material from other Cisco Press titles. I found the CDs very useful-especially the test engines, since a key part of studying for certification exams that are as difficult as Cisco's CCNP exams is assessing what you've learned and how well you can apply it. The self-tests include questions of each type that appear on the exams, including basic simulation-type questions that are probably best called scenarios; they don't have the look and feel of an actual router or switch interface during configuration, as the exams do. They do, however, show you clearly whether you understand the command syntax and topics being covered. The practice test questions are harder and less forgiving, overall, than what's on the exams. I found that if I could make 75% or better on the sample tests, my scores were significantly better on the CCNP exams.

The weakest book in this set is the CIT text, which sticks strictly to Cisco's published objectives for the exam. As such, it's a bit simplistic and doesn't exercise your mind much when it comes to troubleshooting for results-it's oriented toward procedure rather than outcome. The author lets you know to expect this going in, and I appreciated his honesty. The three scenarios offered at the end of the book are rather weak; I was hoping for substantial troubleshooting exercises. But all of the topics on the CIT exam are fully covered in this book.

The BCMSN and BCRAN books are both excellent long-term references, along with the BSCI text, and cover not only the core topics of the exams but also a lot of information useful to networking people after the exams are distant memories. This trait is the core strength of this set. The layout, graphics, quality writing and editing, and extra learning tools make for an outstanding value. Overall, I can't recommend this set highly enough. The highly motivated learner will find everything in this set that's needed to pass the CCNP exams. That said, however, it is important to have either professional experience, a set of readily available routers and switches, or both, to make it over the CCNP hurdles.

These books have a prominent place on my bookshelf at work and at home. I have two sets because I think the books are that good. Anyone interested in networking at the geek level of detail will be well-served by this set.

Cisco Press has re-issued the complete Certification Library in a Third Edition. These four books cover:
BSCI Exam 642-801
BCMSN Exam 642-811
BCRAN Exam 642-821
CIT Exam 642-831
which are the current versions of the exams as listed on Cisco's web site (November 8, 2005).

The set of four books contains updated copies of:
CCNP Self-Study CCNP CIT Exam Certification Guide
CCNP Self-Study CCNP BSCI Exam Certification Guide
CCNP Self-Study CCNP BCRAN Exam Certification Guide
CCNP Self-Study CCNP BCMSM Exam Certification Guide. It includes four companion CD-ROMs that contain test banks with a total of more than 800 practice questions.

Although this is a somewhat intimidating amount of material, buying it in a bundle like this gives you everything you need in one storage box and at a good cost savings over buying the books separately.

Overall, thought the BCMSN was best, then BSCI, then BCRAN, then CIT.


BCMSN is an excellent book, well written and comprehensive. It some nice practice scenarios at the end that are tough and really test your knowledge. Almost everything on the exam was in the book.


BCSI book is also excellent. There are nice practice scenarios at the end of each chapter that test your knowledge. It's a thick book (~900 pages!) and there were very few unpleasant surprises on the exam. Only quibble is that the ISIS chapters could've been easier to understand.


BCRAN is good, but there are a few holes. In particular, there are 2 topics that are woefully inadequate for the exam. Also, no practice scenarios.


CIT is definitely the weakest. It's the shortest book, unnecessarily IMO. It pretty much assumes that you remember all of the "show" and "debug" commands from the previous 3 tests (plus the CCNA) and doesn't really give any examples. The three practice scenarios (only 3 scenarios for a troubleshooting exam!!!) are so-so and there aren't enough of them. To pass the CIT, you definitely need supplmentary materials.

This review is for the 70-622! I have never reviewed any book before because I generally agree with the high ratings and therefore see no reason to write one. Beware of the other "high" reviews of this book they are for the 70-443 or 70-441 where stated which are specific to becoming an MCITP on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 not an MCITP on Windows Vista the 70-431, 70-441, 70-441 have nothing to do with this book or certification! I do not know why those reviews are here but don't listen to them for the 70-622 Book.

I am only halfway through this book and all I can say is it is riddled with a lot of typos, unclear explanations, and technical errors and leaves a lot to be desired in terms of detailed explanations in some subject areas. Also details have been left out on potential sticking points (such as making exceptions in the new Vista firewall and UAC control issues).

For example one pitfall I discovered early on there is no explanation in the difference of going to start Run or start and the search box in Vista (these are two different things the run box is not on the start menu by default).

Typos:
pg. 246 is just one example of many typos. It says under the section Histogram Bar: "If you have a large number of values and you're primarily interested in the current value (rather than the value of each counter over time), this will be EARLIER to read then the line chart"
I think it should have said EASIER, but being that we are talking about a histogram which has to do with a timeframe it could also mean it shows an earlier point then the line chart. However if that were the case that would be some extremely poor sentence structure. I do believe it should have said EASIER.

Technical Issues:
When joining the Vista PC to a Windows 2003 Server Domain you get a DNS related error message. What the author fails to mention is that you may have to go into the advanced properties of the NIC card and either under TCP/IP v4 or v6 enter the IP address of the 2003 Server as your preferred DNS server before the Vista PC's can join the domain.

On pg. 238 - 239 Practice 3 Configuring and Event Subscription
The terms Event collecting and Event forwarding are counter intuitive. Instead of laying out bulleted parameters such as the author saying Vista PC1 is the collecting computer and Vista PC2 is the forwarding computer would be helpful. Really to grasp this counter intuitive convention of naming they have used here a diagram would have been best showing the events and how they are collected and forwarded.

You would think the collecting computer would be the one the events are being generated on. That is not the case it is the one getting the events from the forwarding computer which is forwarding the events to it.

During this exercise I got an error saying "Object reference not set to an instance of an object". After changing two things (making an exception in the windows firewall and putting in a description in the description field), I can now successfully complete the exercise. Before doing these two things the subscription would not work. I had tried over 10 times and kept getting that same error however I now cannot replicate the error by reversing my two steps so I cannot explain this.

Overall the book to me seems very rushed and poorly edited. I am hoping I can pass the 70-621 upgrade exam with this book and the 70-620 but I think I will most likely have to supplement this with another in depth book on Vista as this book is very lacking in my opinion.

The hardware requirements are extensive, a machine running Vista Business or above, a Server 2003 machine and a blank machine to install Vista on using the WAIK. However the instructions to create the WAIK so far have failed to work. So I am still in the setup phase.

This book prepares you verry well for the exam. Its not a big book but its very concice and lets you practice most of the topics you read. The requirements to study for this book are to have a few virtual machines to setup up a local network with a server which has some server roles and few clients. Thats cool because in that way you practice like in the enterprise enviroment. The exercises are very well explained with just a few typos so far. I recomend to create vista virtual machines without sp1 cuz it uninstall the gpmc.msc console that you need to make some exercises. Overall its a very nice book to study, grab it.

This kit does a fantastic job of explaining all components of SQL Server 2005. The practice tests and questions are easy to use and very helpful. While the explanations may not go into in-depth detail, the present a good overview. i recommend this kit. a great value for the money.

This self-help book helped me a lot in preparing me for the MCITP exams. Having a busy time at work and no time at all to go to a learning partner, the book guided me through the learning objectives of the exam.

The book is readable and gives a good overview of the various stages of Software Design and Development. It covers the most pertinent .NET features as well as other Microsoft Products and what they do and how they can be integrated into the solution.

The book is well structured and covers pretty much everything that comes up in the exam.

The Praxistests on the CD are shoddy, though! SHAME ON YOU, THEY GIVE THE BOOK A BAD NAME!! Full of typos, grammatical errors and wrong answers contradicting their own explanations. It's better than nothing, but frustrating and inexplicable, seeing that a few hours of editing would clean up this whole mess.

After attempting to read the MS study guide, I had come to the conclusion that the Microsoft Solutions Framework was just a bunch of UML rebranding, hastily cut and pasted together by lone wolf code hacks with no interest in organized software development. This book has led me to believe that I may be wrong. It IS a bunch of UML rebranding, but MSF still forms a lucid useful framework.

The book is packed with helpful real world advice and is a down to earth pleasurable read, even if you're not taking the test. My hat's off to these guys.

Careful about the eBook version of this book. I downloaded it at home, and unbeknownst to me activated it. When I took it to work via USB drive, it complained it was already activated. My workplace proxy firewall won't let me re-activate it.

If DRM can't work transparently and reasonably, then the manufacturers should stop using it.

I'm getting really annoyed with digital rights management. I'm not trying to steal a copy of this book; I just want to use one copy on different PC's as different times. One copy, one PC at a time!

Amazon should make it clearer when a book or CD has DRM, and what is the implications of purchasing a product using it.

Although I passed the test, I wasn't very satisfied with this book. When I didn't already understand something before I started, I often found their explanations hard to understand. Sometimes an additional small piece of information was needed to grasp the concept, or the wording was ambiguous or incorrect in some subtle way that made it hard to follow.

For example, I had a hard time understanding the notation for Object Role Modeling until I found Terry Halpin's excellent explanation at [...]. Another trivial example is the sample error message exhorting users to make sure that "all numbers are numeric." Of course I know exactly what they mean in that case, but it illustrates the quality of the writing.

On the positive side, they cover all the material and give lots of references in case you need more information. The alerts are good, too.

I must say that several people recommended this book to me, so not everyone shares my concerns. Perhaps I'm spoiled by reading Amit Kalani's excellent books in preparing for other exams. Also, I am not familiar with other books on this subject, so I cannot offer a comparison. This is what I used, and it was good enough.

This is the best study guide for 70-300, but it isn't a home run like the Exam Cram 2 series for other exams (like 70-315). There was a lot of redundancy and emphasis on operations-level aspects, though the emphasis on the logical data model was done alright. I felt I was being told too much reference info (like the DFD example). The book could be improved by turning every end-of-chapter summary into a case study exam, and reworking the practice tests into better case-study examples. I passed the exam thanks to this book, chapter 1 of the MS Press book, and the Transcender exam.

First, the disappointment:
I must say, it is obvious to me that the writer is not only non-technical, but on occasion has trouble with composing coherent sentences. The book very much left me the impression that it was written in a major hurry, and that the writer just Googled each topic, and then slapped something together based on a quick read. Based on the apparent lack of technical knowledge and how concepts relating to software development, protocol stacks, networking, etc. were badly mangled in the book, I am really left wondering if I'll be able to pass the CISSP exam.

Now to the ripoff:
"Free online practice exam" is plastered all over this book (front, back, inside cover, entire section in the book, etc. But when you actually go the the specified web address to claim your free practice exam, they tell you it is no longer available for free, and now you have to pay $20 to get it!!! Haven't these people heard of a class action suit? This is outrageous.

So would I buy this book again? No sireee. And I'll stay away from McGraw-Hill/Osborne as well.

Very easy to read, very informative. Overall, a very good book.

Thanks,
Robert

FANTASTIC MONTH BEFORE THE EXAM :
Mike Meyers' CISSP(R) Certification Passport
by Shon Harris


Read and comprehended all materials.

1. CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide, Third Edition (All-in-One)+ 800 Practice questions included.

2. The CISSP Prep Guide: by Ronald L. Krutz and Russell Dean Vines,
pluss 450 practice questions from BOSON.

3. Mike Meyers' CISSP(R) Certification Passport. 200 pages of solid core material, can carry around anywhere but contains a lot of tips to ace the exam.

4. Great site for free CISSP materilas and practice exam
[...].

Here's an eye-opener of a requirement!
In today's environment of emerging security threats, the U.S. Department of Defense has
recognized the critical need for highly-qualified, experienced information assurance
personnel.
To ensure a knowledgeable and skilled workforce the DoD has taken the necessary steps to
develop a directive that involves the credentialing and continuing education of all DoD
employees with privileged access to DoD information systems.
Specifically, the U.S. Department of Defense Directive 8570.1, signed in August of 2004,
requires every full- and part-time military service member, defense contractor, civilian and
foreign employee with privileged access to a DoD system, regardless of job series or
occupational specialty, to obtain a commercial certification credential that has been
accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
The draft manual, 8570.1M, specifies that the Department of Defense requires approximately
110,000 identified Information Assurance professionals to be certified within a five year time
period. The Defense Information Assurance Program office has divided its Information
Assurance workforce into six defined categories (see chart below). The manual also specifies
the types of commercial information assurance credentials that qualify for each of the defined

I am using this book in addition to Shon Harris' CISSP book, and the ISC2 CISSP manual. This book works well for me as a high-level reference book and as an easy-to-carry/easy-to-read reference book when traveling. A must have book for those studying for their CISSP, but not the only book you'll need for certification. Amazon also had the best price and FAST delivery. I wouldn't purchase my books anywhere else.

This book takes the original Shon Harris book, and explaines the 10 domains from a higher point of view. I would fully recommend reading this book, along with reading the Risk Management and Access Control section of the Shon Harris book.

The test questions are pretty simple, thus I do not recommend relying soley on them. [...] The test questions [...] are all written by CISSP's and closely resenble the questions that will be on the exam.