Authors: Jeremy Cioara, Michael Valentine
Available from Cisco Press, list price $49.99.
What is this book about?
This book covers the exam topics for the 640-461 exam, which are the basics of VoIP at the CCNA level. The book covers CallManager Express (CME), Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), and Unity (Voice Mail).
Who should read this book?
Anyone who wants to get started learning about VoIP. It is not too technical, so some of the more technical managers could also get a lot out of this, but there is still a good amount of command-line. In honesty, I did not take this exam (I took CVOICE when getting my CCVP) so I can’t tell you how well the book prepares you for the cert. The Marine Corps is still in the middle of deciding what it wants to do with VoIP so getting the basics of both CME and CUCM is something that I was looking for (and a good idea for everyone to understand).
What did I like about this book?
The authors did a remarkable job covering a vast amount of material in a very small book (461 pages before you hit appendices). To give a comparison, CCNP: ROUTE is 900 pages before appendices.
I’ve had to teach classes (very basic ones) in both CME and CUCM, and the book does an excellent job covering the basics of both. I do not have any experience with Unity (and with the CCIE studies really ramping up), so I just glossed over that section. Some of the stronger points of the book are the explanations of commonly misunderstood settings and terms (e.g. reset vs. restart vs. apply config), some excellent graphics to illustrate main points (e.g. call flow and signaling), and the breadth of material covered. It is pretty difficult not to be excited to learn more about VoIP after you are done reading this book.
What didn’t I like about this book?
Certification objectives aside, the scope of this book is actually too wide. If you are like me (easily distracted by shiny objects), this book is going to send you in a thousand different directions. I’m sure that is by design (the authors needed to cover all the exam objectives), but with the author’s considerable talent and enthusiasm it would be nice for this book to be a bit less broad, keeping us focused on learning the basics.
Should you buy this book?
Absolutely! If you are looking to start branching off into VoIP, this is the place to start. I’ll warn you that it will be pretty difficult to stop learning VoIP after you start.
**Disclaimer**
One of the great blogs I read, written by Tom Hollingsworth (networkingnerd.net), started clearly outlining the motivations for posts and if payment is involved. It is a good practice I would like to start getting into. I am not affiliated in any way with Cisco Press, nor was I paid to write this post. The book was provided to me as a “blogger review copy” and there are no expectations from the publisher in regards to my comments (I’ve not been asked to post any content that is not 100% my own thoughts). All of the previous book posts were written under the same context.