Rating: 
Summary: Very humane down-to-earth writing, and it gets you to pass!
Review: Another great Todd Lammle book. I just passed the exam today with 922 points, 860 points being the minimum passing score.
I love the encouraging words after a tough chapter for example, telling you what a good job you have done. I generally love the humane writing, that really helps you understand the technical terms. The book misses the "Managing Enterprise VPN Routers" subject comletely so it would be a good idea to find some information about this subject elewhere before taking the exam, just to improve your chances. However if you study the book hard enough you will still pass. There are a few errors here and there, but you should be able to spot them, reading through the material. Great assessment, chapter and bonus tests. I also bought some test software from Boson, which gave me a little more knowledge not found in the book.
Rating:
Summary: Todd Lammle did it again! I am not surprised.
Review: As a Todd Lammle fan, I bought this book months ago and just received it from amazon. It is a nicly laid out book, that is easy to read and understand. I have finished the first chapter, and skimmed through the rest, and it is a pleasure to read! I was scared at first because I knew nothing about security. However, Todd Lammle has written this book in a manner that makes me feel like he is my buddy explaining this to me in an easy to understand way. I have learned way more then I thought I would already. Two thumbs, way up. Thanks, Todd!
Sally
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Exam Resource!
Review: Having read the great reviews posted before mine, I figured the 642-501 would be a good exam to renew my CCNA with, as well as start my CCSP. In exactly one week I read the book from front to back and passed my exam with relative ease. While there are few spelling errors in some of the configs, you'll notice them if you know your stuff. Other than that, the book is an incredible resource, even if you're not taking the exam.
Rating: 
Summary: insuficient for the 642-501 exam
Review: I bought this book because I have good experiences with Todd Lammle books, his books are usually clearly written and cost little energy to digest (and he did manage to this again in this book). but.....It does seem out of date at this moment, the CCSP path changes rapidly and some main toppics have been added (such as "securing Cisco Routers using Security device manager" and "management centre (MC) for VPN routers". There is a big chance that the exam will hold quite a few questions on these topics as happened with me. With a passing rate of 860 you just can't afford loosing valuable points just because it wasn't in the book. I am now reading the cisco press self study book (Published: Apr 21, 2004), and indeed like one of the other reviewers says, they might sometimes be crammed with in depth information (perhaps even too much for the exam). Sybex should rewrite this book to match it with the current standards. I'm happy that a lot of the reviewers passed after using this book, but it might have something to do with a lucky collection of questions.
Regards, Herman
Rating:
Summary: Well organized and written
Review: I completed 642-501 couple of days before, scoring 933. This book is the only reference i had, and it covered almost everything on the exam, because there were couple of questions on Management Centre for VPN....which i don't remember having read from this book. There were couple of errors, however i think they are easily identifiable. On the whole this book is a good study guide for 642-501.
Rating: 
Summary: Prasanna
Review: I completed 642-501 couple of days before, scoring 933. This book is the only reference i had, and it covered almost everything on the exam, because there were couple of questions on Management Centre for VPN....which i don't remember having read from this book. There were couple of errors, however i think they are easily identifiable. On the whole this book is a good study guide for 642-501.
Rating:
Summary: Excellant book!
Review: I like some of the other reviewers, went to take this exam to renew my ccna, and to go down the ccsp path. I only read this book for a resource for the exam. It took me about 3 weeks to read and study the material. I went today and scored a 927 on the exam. Thanks Todd!
Rating:
Summary: Book not a "stand alone"
Review: I used this book, along with my experience and I failed the test. As several have mentioned there are questions about SDM & MC on the exam that are not covered in this book. I have about 6 questions on SDM. Unfortunately I had no real life experience with this.
If you use this book, make sure you get other study material! With a score of 860 needed, the SDM questions alone put you very close to failure.
Rating:
Summary: Well organized and written
Review: If you follow Mr. Lammle's advise and take your time reading through all the chapters, you will do well on the exam. This book helped me pass the exam on my first try. Don't be fooled by the size of the book. It packs a wealth of information that takes time to absorb. If you are a beginner, this is not a quick read. Altough this is not what I consider "leisure reading", I'm very thankful that Mr. Lammle added a little humor to his writing. The bonus exams on the CD were very helpful. I recommend this book to anyone studying for the Cisco Secur EXAM.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent prep book (... but could use minor revision)
Review: If you read and understand the first 9 chapters, you WILL pass the test. No other prep material is necessary. The writing style is more engaging than Cisco Press publications without sacrificing technical depth. This book does need minor revision, as there are a handful of minor syntactical errors in his IOS command examples. However, the inconsistences should be obvious to any serious test candidate.
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