CCNA Voice 640-461 Official Cert Guide

I've written less than 5 online reviews ever, which makes me more of a taker than contributor to the online world, since I rely heavily on reviews for purchasing decisions.... but this book is worth reviewing. I have my CCNA, CCNP, CCNA Security and CCNP Security, now I am working on my CCNA Voice - this is the best Cisco press book I have ever read aside from the CCNP Route book written by Wendell Odom. It has a great balance of technical information and practical explanations that tie everything together very welland make learning more linear, rather than flipping back and fourth. This book also has personality and witty humor, which is so rare in technical books. The author's passion really shows through and makes this book, dangerously close to a very enjoyable read.

I purchased the kindle version, I'm at 40% of the book when I'm writing this review, I haven't read other Cisco voice books so I can't make a comparison.Pros:1- Jeremy's way of explaining is very simple and clear, I have 7 years telecom experience with fixed and mobile networks and decided to move into the SIP world, and was curious how Jeremy will explain the legacy network section, I don't think it can be done simpler than the way he explains it.2- The book structure is very good, you can build up the full picture through the chapters even if you have no knowledge with the world of Cisco voice (which I didn't have).3- The amount of information about each part is adequate, written in a short way, and the writer doesn't get you lost into deep details, which is the way I prefer, maybe other readers prefer the long detailed way!?cons:1- Pictures are small, I'm reading on a 24inch monitor and can't read many snapshots' contents easily, full page should be used instead for several pictures to make it easy to read.2- No page numbers, this is common in many kindle books, a percentage is used instead.3- The CD provided with the printed version of the book is not available with the kindle edition, I believe its very easy for the publisher to arrange with Amazon to provide a download link along with a username/password for each client purchases the ebook version.

For me was a very very helpful guide to introduce me in the Cisco Voice track, Jeremy has a very funny way to explain things that results in a pretty easy way to understand the topics of the CCNA Voice Exam. I pass my exam studying from this material with no problems. The only issue I found, not regarding of the product, is that this certification is very specific to Call Manager Express and Call Manager technologies and not in basic Voice topics, for that you have to go to the Cvoice certification.

Jeremy Cioara is a great instructor i used his books along with his courses on CBT Nuggets to pass all of my tests. This book is almost word for word with his CBT Nuggets series "Cisco VoIP CCNA Voice ICOMM 640-461" which i also used in correlation with this book to pass my CCNA Voice on the first try, Buy the ebook it's cheap and you will always have it to reference back to, quick and easy on your computer.

I have CCNP certifications on Routing & Switching and Security, I have over 5 years of experience working as a network administrator, so I decided to start with VoIP towards the CCNP certification. I really didn't have any experience with voice except switch and QoS configuration.I decided to post my review just after I present the exam, fortunately for me, I was able to successfully pass the exam. What I can say about it, is that this is not an easy exam, VoIP is a whole new world even if you have networking experience, so you need to be really prepared for this exam.About the book, this was my first source of preparation since it is the guide for the exam. I think is a challenge to write a text book for this exam, since the applications used in Cisco Unified are really huge, they have a lot of options, a lot of sections and the troubleshooting could be really complicated, I think this book was not totally successful on this task, and this is why in my opinion:- lack of explanation: for people, like me, that are new on VoIP, telephony concepts like: DID, ANI, FXO, E&M and others, I think they deserve some explanation before they are referred in the book. The authors could've done a better work with these and add a few more pages for basic telephony topics.- Confusing explanations: I think the first chapters about Cisco Unified, CUCME and basic topics are very well written and the authors did a great job there, but when they start talking about CUCM, CUC and CUPS it was very confusing for me to understand what they were talking about or what was the goal of a specific section in any of this applications. I think this section really need configuration examples, more diagrams and a more clear segmentation.- Errors: the book includes multiple errors, so what out for them.The book as a guide includes all what you need to pass the exam. I don't think this could be a reference, since it is a very basic book. If you need more or a better explanation about some topics included, this books are good references and I highly recommend to be checked (of course within the limits of the CCNA exam):- Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Voice over IP and QoS (Cvoice) Foundation Learning Guide: (CCNP Voice CVoice 642-437) (4th Edition)- Configuring Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Unity Connection: A Step-by-Step Guide (2nd Edition)- Cisco Unity Connection- Cisco Unified Presence Fundamentals- Cisco DocumentationThe practice included with this book is extremely useful, I didn't check the exams included with the premium edition, however is up to you if think you need them.- Fernando

I'm the kind of person that reads a cert book before taking an exam-that's how I study for it to pass the exam (of course, plus experience). Glad I found this on Kindle and it is about 50% cheaper and takes less desk space than a hardcopy. Nice if they can send updated versions via kindle until they get to a major revision. There are some subjects that are further explained via Cisco's websites.

Es un libro de excelente calidad tanto por el cartone como por el contenido de CISCO lastima que sean tan caros.

Packaging was good, Price was however on the expensive side.Apart from this , This is an superb book if you wish to study ccna collaboration.its simple to understand, Author covers both gui and cli. Practice dumps in cd.Go for it - Concepts mentioned are really easy to understand.

The book in the picture is the second edition while the description is for the first edition - the delivered product is the first edition likewise.

Fast delivery from seller, great book!. A must in order to get CCNA Voice Certified, not the easiest book in the serie (i loved more the CCNA R/S) but a mandatory guide for the voice track.

I cannot speak highly enough of JC (no not that one) will the real JC please stand up!He makes this stuff interesting with some slight tangents here and there.I'm hoping to take the exam in the near future having passed CCNA (Routing & Switching) recently too.I would recommend GNS3 online labs/simulation for all networking scenarios for testing