The Complete Cisco VPN Configuration Guide (Networking Technology)

List Price: $85.00 Discount Price: $60.00

Customer Reviews:

The Best Cisco VPN Configuration Book [Posted on 2006-02-25]
Richard Deal's "The Complete Cisco VPN Configuration Guide" provides a complete step by step guide on how to configure VPN on Cisco Concentrators, software (including Windows VPN client) and hardware client, IOS routers, PIX and ASA security appliances.

The book also discusses what to look for to troubleshoot VPN connection, provides common real-life problems you will experience when setting up VPN and a case study at the end of the book to review all the concepts and configuration from previous chapters.

The book does an excellent job in informing when and why to select certain Cisco VPN products over others. It also provides up to date information on VPN configuration guide for PIX. Both PIX FOS 6.0 and 7.0 VPN configurations are discussed.

The book focuses about five chapters discussing concentrators. This is understandable as Cisco concentrators are more widely used for remote access than other Cisco VPN products. However, I would like to see the book to give equal weight to PIX and ASA appliances as more and more are adopting them as concentrators are gradually being phased out.

The book will be more complete if it mentions other VPN configuration features such as SDM for IOS routers, ASDM for PIX and ASA and VPN Router Management Center for Cisco Works. The author has omitted these due to space constraints since the book is already almost 1,000 pages.

In summary, this book will benefit any network administrators with intermediate to advance level of knowledge that need to use Cisco products for VPN implementation. This is the best "how-to" Cisco Press book for Cisco VPN and it fulfills its mission as a complete resource for understanding Cisco VPN implementation.

You might also want to check other Richard Deal's well written security book titled "Cisco Router Firewall Security".

Excellent resource for security professionals [Posted on 2006-07-03]
Richard Deal's book, The Complete Cisco VPN Configuration Guide, sets out to provide a comprehensive reference for networking professionals designing, deploying, and managing VPN solutions. This book covers the foundational information as well as step by step guides to configuring VPN solutions on Cisco VPN Concentrators, software and hardware clients, Cisco IOS routers, and Cisco PIX and ASA appliances.

The book is broken down into 6 parts: VPNs, Concentrators, Clients, IOS Routers, PIX Firewalls, and a Case Study. The VPN chapters provide the reader with an excellent foundation in VPNs. These chapters cover topics such as VPN types and topologies, technologies used to establish VPNs, as well as VPN implementations, such as IPsec, PPTP, L2TP, SSL. The next section focuses on the Cisco VPN Concentrators. Mr. Deal provides information on the Cisco 3000 series of VPN concentrators as well as the features of various software releases. The next few chapters focus on different deployment scenarios. These scenarios include remote access with IPsec, Remote access with PPTP, L2TP, and WebVPN (SSL), and site-to-site. The final chapters of the concentrator section cover management and troubleshooting. The next section covers software (Cisco and Microsoft) and hardware (Cisco) VPN clients. The fourth section focuses on Cisco IOS Routers. This section follows a similar layout to the concentrator section providing details about site-to-site and remote access VPN connections as well as a troubleshooting chapter at the end. It does highlight the differences in the configuration as well. As with the concentrators, Mr. Deal include specific product information. While helpful in dealing with existing equipment, it quickly will become obsolete as Cisco EOS/EOL equipment and software from these lists. It might have been more practical to provide URL references to Cisco's website. The fifth section covers VPN deployments with the Cisco PIX and ASA security appliances. Again, the layout is consistent with the IOS Router and Concentrator sections. The final section is a case study which brings together most of the concepts covered in the book.

This book is an excellent reference on VPNs. It should be in every networking professional's personal library who designs, deploys, and manages a VPN solution. The diagrams are clear and easy to follow. The troubleshooting chapters of each section provide excellent tools as well as common mistakes to help the networking professional deploy their solution successfully. The case study provides an invaluable example of a real world deployment. While the book is not advertised to be an exam preparation or certification guide, it could easily be used as a supplement towards those studies.

Great if you like GUI applications, not if you use the CLI. [Posted on 2006-11-03]
I was hoping that the book would spend more time on actual router configuration rather than use GUI-related products. It was difficult to divine the actual config while wading through page after page of screen-shots.

Bingo! [Posted on 2007-02-10]
Well this book proved few things to me... Firstly VPN is not rocket science and secondly I havent seen any better book than this that Cisco press might have printed. IPSEC, GRE, SSL, L2TP, PPTP, WEBVPN were the term that used to give me nightmares. However this book was just perfect and 1 month of reading this book makes me very confident about the whole technology. I generally followed each chapter with real hands on and I wasnt bumped even once anywhere. I will seriously recommend this book to everyone, if VPN is what you want to learn, stop your search here! NOW!

Scratch "Complete" from the Title [Posted on 2008-08-19]
Very disappointed. I have a 950 page book that does not cover setting up an IOS router for remote access using PPTP or L2TP. WTF? Heck - that's why I bought this expensive book. If you have deep pockets and can buy whatever cisco gear you like then this book will likely introduce you to many possible VPN solutions. But there seems to be a bias in the book toward large enterprise solutions - with little or no consideration given to SOHO and small businesses. Many of us make do with the resources that we have available and can't just go out a buy stuff because the author thinks a remote access concentrator would be "best." I still can't believe that he doesn't cover configuring IOS for access by Windows PPTP or L2TP clients. I'm stunned. With this glaring omission I can't help but wonder about the completeness of the other content. Thumbs down.

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